


Connection

by mabel_but_slytherin



Category: Danny Phantom, Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous Half-Ghost Danny, Ambiguous Medium Danny, Danny hunts with the Winchesters, Danny sees dead people, Discontinuous plot, Gen, Ghost Bobby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabel_but_slytherin/pseuds/mabel_but_slytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters questioned the teen psychic's mysterious connections to the Other Side (or "the Zone", as he called it during rare slip-ups), but they were willing to look the other way if it meant they could seance Bobby's ghost for advice without compromising their "if it ain't human, kill it" mentality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Super long AN ahead, feel free to put your fingers in the air and scroll past like you just don't care if you really don't care:
> 
> A little background is probably necessary for this story, because it's definitely not going to be my normal foray.
> 
> It started on tumblr as a sentence story in the style of sapphireswimming's Apricity (which does a TON of AWESOME superphantom sentences). While I post my Gravity Falls ones on this site under Boscaresque, I do a bunch of crossovers for any Superphantomfalls combination for tumblr requests. One day sapphire sent requests for a series of superphantom crossovers, the last of which was prompted by "Connection". I really didn't expect to get feedback from it, but within a day that set was one of the most popular I'd done and there were a bunch of tags dying for a full fledged fic based on that last sentence. I obliged with a short drabble that is this first chapter and next thing I know I have three posts, enough ideas to fill a verse, and recommendations from people (*cough*sapphire*) to post it on ffn. It scarily had a similar response there so now we're coming over to AO3 like Namco coming to Europe!
> 
> So here's the original sentence and the first drabble, and I'll try to post the next two within a week or so! This'll be a mutlichapter adventure, but other than the first two chapters making up the "beginning" of this verse (unless I play with any of the many ideas of how the characters met, etc.) the chapters are not guaranteed to be in chronological order. I'll try to end each AN with where I think the story fits in the timeline.
> 
> So enjoy this strange connection!

_The original story_ yes it is the summary too

**Connection:** The Winchesters questioned the teen psychic's mysterious connections to the Other Side (or "the Zone", as he called it during rare slip-ups), but they were willing to look the other way if it meant they could seance Bobby's ghost for advice without compromising their "if it ain't human, kill it" mentality.

* * *

The Winchesters were driving through the minor city of Amity Park, Illinois on a hunt that they found in the newspaper while staying outside of Chicago. It wasn't much, just a minor salt and burn, and the fact that the "resident ghost experts" couldn't even take care of this simple of a haunting just added more evidence to the Winchesters' belief that the supernatural should never be left to "the professionals".

Although most arguments against that claim don't make it past a simple reference to the Ghostfacers.

They were carrying the shovels to finish packing up the Impala. The graveyard here was inaccessible to automobiles and Sam had been making laps to put the rock salt and kerosene away while Dean filled in the now empty grave. The night was clear and dark and silent, the perfect evening for a nice relaxing mindless hunt.

"You didn't have to kill him. He wasn't going to hurt anyone else." Dean swore and Sam nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice that called out to them, neither hunter having even picked up on the fact that another person was present. Leaning on the ornate gate marking the entrance to the Eternal Garden Graveyard was a dark-haired teenager in a white t-shirt and jeans. His piercing blue eyes were partially covered by the fringe of his hair, but it was obvious from his eye contact that he was speaking to the Winchesters.

"Who the hell are you kid?" Dean finally yelled across, his voice booming with a almost unconfident loudness compared to the boy's conversational tone that seemed to just carry itself across the open space.

"My name's Danny. But that boy's name was Sidney Poindexter, and he was just trying to get back at bullies like those who killed him when he was a student at Casper High. He spent 40 years trapped in that school watching things go on, never interfering before he snapped, but he was trying to gain control of himself again. He hadn't hurt anyone in over a week, and was even starting to manage his obsession by helping the abused without taking it out on their abusers."

"And how do you know all of this?"

"He told me. It's a wonderful thing, what words will do when you actually have the guts to ask questions first and shoot later."

Now it was Sam's turn to look skeptical, "a ghost who had killed two members of the Casper High football team just sat down and told you all of this?"

"Yeah, sorry kid, but normally ghosties aren't really into all that tea time therapy crap." Dean couldn't help but butt in.

"I talk to a lot of ghosts around here. Some are more personal than others, but it's amazing how much they'll share about what they know if you promise to do a couple of harmless favors in the real world. Just a chance to try to talk sense into people they cared about can do wonders for keeping the rage at bay, even if it comes through a third party." The boy shrugged as he stood up, the two movements combining into a single fluid roll of his spine. "Oh well, I'll just have to tell Bobby I did my best."

And he found himself slammed back against the stone wall as Dean crossed the distance at an almost inhuman speed, shovel pressed against the younger boy's throat and a snarl on his face. "Don't you dare mention Bobby like you actually speak to him."

Danny's expression never changed, the stare of those soul-piercing eyes only breaking for a second as he made an unimpressed blink. "You know, I wasn't really sure about the old man's terminology, but I guess he really was justified in saying 'those two idjits might not believe me when I first bring him up'."

The shovel shook in Dean's quivering grip, but the force with which in pinned Danny back never wavered. "...Bobby?"

"I have more proof if you need it. Bobby Singer is more of a need to know person, but when it came to convincing you two that I'm not some insane demon out to kill you, there were  _a lot_  of personal details that suddenly fell under need to know."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for taking so long to update here: I post on ffn and tumblr as well and must've forgot to hit update here. I'll try to get the next chapter I have published in the next couple of days!  
> Enjoy the chapter and a little headcanon at the end.

Danny stood in the chilly midnight air and let the hollow feeling echo through his chest. He couldn't tell whether he felt more prominently the chill of Syndey's death being torn away from this plane before he could truly rest or the searing heat of the fire burning in his grave that echoed through Danny's mind, but both sensations were uncomfortable enough that the young teen felt no solace in their duality.

Sydney had… god, Sydney had been one of his too few rocks in the roaring sea of souls that pushed through the tear in the Zone. Sure, they had gotten off to a really bad start, and Danny was lucky that he wasn't caught in the brunt of the ghost nerd's rage the same way those jocks were, but he could hardly blame the dead boy for killing two of the living.

He empathized with the lost soul too much to blame him for when he snapped.

How could he not bond with the boy who had gone through almost exactly what he had? When Poindexter had realized the error in his judgement of Danny he immediately took the Casper High student under his wing, and for the first time Danny was part of a haunting that he didn't mind being the center of. The ghost was vindictive and petty, but he was too young when he passed to have learned the value in turning the other cheek: a moral Danny all too quickly internalized while fending off revenge-driven beasts from the beyond.

But as Sydney Poindexter hung around Danny more, his companionship quieted at the nearly empty lunch tables while Sam and Tucker argued over lunch proteins and the ghost started putting the thoughts clearly on his mind off until later so Danny wouldn't appear even more insane to the human world. After staying for the largest and emotionally draining lecture Danny had ever given after hearing the news of the bodies at Casper High (sometimes Danny felt he was becoming way too much like Jazz from this whole stint), he started not only wincing or growling after Dash whenever Danny was shoved into a locker, but instead sought to protect Danny as best as he could peacefully, and eventually even moved on to helping the other losers scurrying through the high school halls.

It wasn't only the kindness that gave Danny hope, but the change. Sydney Poindexter was _learning_ , and after 40 years of static death it went against everything Danny had heard about the afterlife from his parents. Maybe they were wrong entirely, maybe it was his connection that made him special, but either way he could interact with ghosts and change them for the better and that finally gave him a purpose, a lookout point to stand on when looking into the green abyss of the Ghost Zone, and it made Danny's life that much more stable on both sides of death.

To have all of his support torn away, to have his first hope smothered without even the possibility of rest or peace only served to spread that cold through Danny's core.

The hand on his shoulder chased some of it away, not because of its warmth, the owner was dead after all, but because if Sydney Poindexter had been Danny's emotional support these past few weeks then Bobby Singer was his mental one. Somewhere in the vast unknown where Sydney represented purpose, Bobby had answers.

The man was gruff, and his attitude had convinced Danny for a while that the middle aged ghost hated him as most of the bloodthirsty ones did, but eventually the teen realized it was just his strange form of affection. He was uptight and paranoid, and discovering details about his past life was like hacking into a top secret database (harder, if the ease with which Tucker hacked was any indication).

After a few days of long but friendly two-sided conversations all the teen had learned was that Bobby Singer had died unexpectedly; had already haunted another locale but was banished (maybe there was hope that Sydney had somehow held on); and had two living boys, not related by blood but he had practically raised them from childhood, who Bobby Singer treated as sons.

Most importantly: Bobby Singer had seen and dealt with ghosts when he was alive.

Danny had no clue if the situation was anything like what he was going through, but the advice, reassurance, and occasional recipes for what cocktail of wards should keep the ghosts out for most of the night  _so he could actually sleep_  were indispensable.

These mysteries combined with the stubborn acceptance of a ghost who wasn't trying to force-feed him or hang his hide as decorations, lead Danny to promise to do almost whatever favor necessary in order to help the melancholy ghost move on.

Even if it meant confronting Sydney's murderers. Danny was against risking violence, if the tension did nothing but feed  _the rage_  that devoured so many ghosts, but in this case, the Amity Park teen was willing to risk it.

Maybe for once it'll be therapeutic for himself as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Background for the 'verse: THE RAGE. You've probably seen me referencing "the rage" a couple of times (such as in the second to last paragraph). It's an idea I have for this crossover that basically combines a ghost's obsession (as seen on DP) with the murderous lack of humanity that ghosts canonically devolve into in SPN over time. If isolated from humanity in the ghost zone or a really happy place, ghost's obsessions tend to manifest in positive emotions (Box Ghost + boxes, Lunch Lady + the usual menu). Messing with it triggers the rage. Being around your murderer/something that reminds you of your death tends to trigger the rage (Poindexter + bullying, Bobby + Dick Roman). Violence, or even the escalation towards it, tends to have a similar effect. Happier, saner, and more stable ghosts tend to manifest it less often, or at least in a more manageable form (Skulker gives in to his hunting for the best prey because it eats at him if he's not challenged enough, Ember gets depression and then rage if she goes too long without fans). Danny can be pretty good at acting human, but if he's around ghosts (or his ghost form, ya know, if he happens to be half ghost or something crazy like that) he can often start feeling minor forms of rage as well. To quote Journal 3 from Gravity Falls about confronting this type of ghost: PRAY FOR MERCY! As a final point about this: ghosts HATE being in this form. They can't control themselves and sometimes don't even truly remember it (think Dora). A lot of ghosts will take Danny's advice just because it might prevent them from becoming enraged.


	3. Chapter 3 (Soup!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a ghost nearby and Danny's determined to hunt it- WITHOUT the Winchesters.

Danny let out a yawn as he lay in bed and felt his lungs go cold. The shiver worked its way down his body in a shake that only happens when faced with a sudden chill or the unwelcome requirement to get out of bed. Tonight, like too many before it, Danny was dealing with both.

The teenager began to sit up in bed when he noticed the other bed, where Sam and Dean were at least courteous enough to share with each other than with him, make the soft creak that a motel bed of this quality screeched no matter how subtly one attempted to shift their weight. Thinking fast, Danny took advantage of his current movement to flip himself to the side, back facing the Winchesters, and hoped his actions were fluid enough to be interpreted as simply tossing in his sleep to the prying eyes.

The much louder thump the mattress made on contact only guaranteed that the other man's action had been purposeful.

Danny's resulting yawn was only a poor disguise for a groan.

Luckily, the position the teenager was in now had two advantages. First, by showing his back to the Winchesters the kid could continue to play dumb: the hunters knew he had the preservation instincts to not openly show his back to them consciously, and the idea of the teen trusting them was such a joke right now that they probably wouldn't even consider his subconscious sleep actions an adorable sign of comfort as so many adults often did. Facing them would surely only result in a battle of timing quick glances to catch the other watching, and that would be entirely unproductive with a ghost potentially wreaking havoc and breaking down outside.

Again, it all came down to trust, and Danny didn't trust the Winchesters to successfully handle a ghost any more than he trusted them to look after his well-being. Ignoring the fact that the teen mysteriously left his hometown without telling anyone in order to travel to god-knows-where corners of the country with the two mass-murderers. But that was trusting Bobby, the dead guy who was intimidating enough to scare the other, much more monstrous dead guys away, and who had mentored said younger mass-murderers he so desperately requested Danny stay with.

It made more sense when Danny wasn't exhausted.

Anyway, the other advantage Danny had was that he was facing the side of the bed where he dumped his meager backpack of personal possessions. It was easy to find in the dark, after all the boy had carefully mapped the best location to remain as distant from the Winchesters as possible while allowing itself to be quickly slung on his back as the teen squeezed through his secondary escape route in the air vent. The Winchesters made no room for argument that they would sleep closest to the door, and it would've been hilarious watching Dean's face as he rationalized whether it was best to let the clearly-annoyed-at-being-babied Sam sleep between him and Danny or abandon his little brother to the perils of the heavily locked, warded, and salted door keeping anything from entering from the outside world. Again, it should be pretty obvious that there was little love lost in this arrangement.

It only took a few minutes of very slow searching for Danny's hand to close in on the cold metal device he was feeling for and pull it up onto the bed. The metal would have warmed in the time it spend hugged to Danny's chest as he waited for the breaths and heartbeats of his watchers to even out if it wasn't imbued with the unnatural chill of the Zone, but the boy didn't mind as his own heart echoed the chill. Both senses reminded him of his duty outside.

So after an excruciating lifetime the teen felt enough time had passed to guarantee the Winchesters were asleep and carefully made his way out of the bed. He had purposefully maneuvered himself into a position that would appear even to trained eye nearly impossible to quietly manipulate, and while that had obviously eased whichever Winchester was watching, Danny hadn't earned the epithet of Ghost Boy just by watching the creatures without picking up a trick or two. He was able to nimbly flip himself onto the floor, and as his toes stuck the landing into the filthy shag carpeting he let himself sink into the floor for the first time since he woke up.

Here's a little secret: a bed can't creak under no weight, after all.

Danny had passed the Winchester's bed and already finished the obsessive checking on his guardians that any sneaking teenager knew too well, his hand just about to reach for the door when a foreign limb snapped out and encased the wrist in an iron grip. Danny let out one of those not-quite-curses he had picked up from Vlad under his breath, annoyed that he was resorting to the Fruit-Loop's vocabulary in his exhaustion rather than more Uncle Bobby approved language, and the unimpressed look on Dean's face clearly reflected similar disapproval.

Oh, and don't forget the growing mistrust and nearly blinding rage. Yeah, Danny's concern over his choice in not-quite swears might not be the first thing on Dean Winchester's mind right now.

"Just  _what_  do you think you're doing up?" the older man seethed.

"I couldn't sleep." Berating himself that that was  _not_  an acceptable response to a man who was perfectly happy locking Danny in the motel no matter how insomniac he was the teen just kept letting the excuses ramble. "And I really needed a walk..." that was worse! "...to go get something to eat! There's no food in here and I'm really hungry." Danny unwittingly found his other hand scratching the back of his head in his way-too-obvious tell, and ended up wincing as the metal device he had completely forgotten about slammed into the base of his skull.

It was awkward trying to massage the already growing head bruise out with his hand without dropping the ghost weapon, but Dean Winchester really didn't care for the teenage awkwardness unless said teenager was the fully-grown-and-still-fully-annoyed-at-being-babied Sammy, and his eyes quickly zeroed in on the unidentified weapon-like object in Danny's hand.

"And what is that?"

Danny jolted as he brought the item in front of his vision, where Dean could see but would have a hard time bending it out of his grip. The jolt may have been from when he accidentally hit his cranium again with the motion. "It's a thermos. I was in the mood for soup."

"You were in the mood for soup... so you were sneaking out... in the middle of the night... with a thermos...?" The man sounded pretty unconvinced at the incredulous tale, but Danny was impressed that he managed to weave a coherent tale at who even knows what hour.

"Yeah. I like soup."

The grip on Danny's left hand tightened as Dean held his other arm out. "I'm going to need to see that." He was eyeing it suspiciously, and Danny would've smacked himself if he wasn't wary against hitting himself a third time when it suddenly hit him that the man was likely suspecting drugs.

"Oh come on! It isn't anything like that!" Deans heated glare and quick glance towards the sleeping giant on the bed silently reprimanded Danny that waking Sam up was not a viable option if the ghost-connected boy wanted to ensure his survival.

"Then I'm sure if you have nothing to hide you wouldn't mind me looking at it?" Danny was tempted to just let Dean open the thermos and be done with it: catching Johnny 13 again wouldn't be too much trouble, especially if he and Wulf could negotiate send the teenage ghost back to the Zone to live peacefully with Kitty rather than finding her a vessel here. But seeing that the elder Winchester probably wouldn't be very understanding of the teen releasing a dangerous ghost from a weapon like device and then summoning a friend who can rip through dimensions, opening the thermos was out of the question.

Danny probably wouldn't survive the night if Dean went so far as to consider the idea that he was carrying ghosts to enable future hauntings.

Maybe the fear, exhaustion, and continuing sense of the ghost outside were teaming up to make him reckless.

"No. You're not my mother. You don't have any right to go through my stuff. And you certainly don't have the right to keep me locked up in here when I'm hungry and wanting soup!" And in a final burst of stupidity, Danny pulled his arm right through Dean's unwavering grip.

The other man didn't take any time to hesitate (nor leave Danny any time to escape) before that arm came back around and pinned Danny against the door he was trying to exit from. "Look, kid. Don't think that Sam and I aren't aware that you're not fully human. You don't just get to go around acting strangely and stirring up trouble and think that we're just going to stand by and let you do that weird ghosty thing you do just because you say you know Bobby."

"Acting weird? Stirring up trouble? So I'm not allowed to be hungry, or to get food, or to want privacy! You keep seeing everything I do as inhuman like I'm some kind of monster, maybe I'm just trying to act like a normal teenager for once in my life!"

Danny hadn't been thinking. He was never thinking when he got too frustrated or overwhelmed, especially if there was another ghost nearby. Luckily he could still feel himself largely in control, but he would surely be beating himself up later for his poor choice in everything.

Or he would've, if those words weren't what caused Dean to loosen his nearly choking grip and let the teen fall onto the floor.

Danny looked up to see the elder man glancing in Sam's direction, a wistful and nostalgic look on his face with just a hint of regret. But what about Danny's outburst about normality would make Dean think of Sam, who seemed just as if not more eager than his brother to keep hunting as they always had and... oh.

They mustn't have had a choice. And Sam must've wanted out at some point or another. But no matter how much either brother wanted to be somewhere safe with the people the cared about, they felt it was their duty to protect innocents from the supernatural, no matter how much it isolated them from the rest of the world and destroyed any chance at normality.

Just like Danny.

Maybe that's why Bobby was so sure that Danny wouldn't be killed in the Winchester's care. Why he was so convinced that the teen would be able to get through to the hunters over time and let them rest and be safe, or at least pursue a path that wouldn't needlessly put them in harm's way and risk them or mostly innocent ghosts from being killed. Was convinced that somehow, Sam and Dean Winchester would be good for Danny too.

Dean was still lost in thought staring at his brother, more emotions crossing his face than Danny had even believed a cold-blooded killer could feel.

"Sometimes I just need to indulge in the little things, a walk in fresh air, a thermos of warm soup, to convince myself that I'm still somewhat normal. That, no matter what you seem to believe in spite of the facts I've laid out quite clearly, I'm still human."

The man blocking his way finally backed up, but gestured his arm towards Danny's bed. "Sometimes the only place you can even pretend to be normal is in dreams.  _At least when no angelic dicks start interrupting them._ " Danny hadn't quite caught that last sentence Dean mumbled under his breath, but just chose to ignore it. "And just this once, I'm gonna pretend I didn't see whatever that thermos thing is. Don't believe for a second that I buy the excuse that it's for soup."

"But what about the fact that I'm starving here!"

All the teen got was a level glare. "Again, don't believe for a second that I think that thing's for soup."

"...Soup Nazi."

The insult was supposed to be under his breath, at least soft enough that Dean couldn't hear, but next thing Danny knew the older man was bursting out in laughter. "Did you just insult me with Seinfeld?"

"What? It's a good show!"

At least this time the chuckles from Dean were decidedly softer. "Sure. Let's also file that under lies I won't believe for a heartbeat."

Danny just glared, but little did he know that his dead tired-of-this-night-and-your-attitude expression happened to resemble the patented Sam Winchester bitchface.

Dean sighed. "Fine, kid. You know what? Have your damn soup."

The boy's grin lit up like a Christmas tree as he ran to the door, undid all of the locks at a practically inhuman speed, and ran out of the motel room.

"Don't believe for a second that I trust you enough to think you're actually eating soup." Dean let out another chuckle. "No soup for you."


	4. Chapter 4 (Leviathan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Often times the Winchesters hunt monsters. Sometimes the monsters hunt them. This time Danny's there too.

Danny was just starting to get used to the prospect of hunting with the Winchesters. Of the ratty motel rooms, the late nights (if they could even be called that given how rarely they got back before dawn and the utter inconsistency in sleep cycles) and the greasy diner food that made Nasty Burger taste like heaven.

They had mainly been hunting monsters: vampires that feasted on dozens of local teenagers or werewolf communities that infested entire suburban towns (although even one victim there who was trying to fight the lycanthropy made Sam tense for the rest of the day and Dean uncomfortably check on his brother while starring Danny down to make sure he didn't go on some "they didn't deserve it" rage and try to kill the brothers). Anything that even remotely sounded like a ghost haunting was immediately out of the question to the brothers, with a shared glance in his direction informing Danny that it was solely because of him. He even caught a whispered conversation when they thought he was asleep in the back of the Impala consisting of Sam asking if he should go off and put down some of the ghosts on his own, while Dean grumbled that it was too dangerous and wondering if only there was a way to keep their eye on the kid without having to drag him along.

Some things never changed. Good old fashioned mistrust was one of them.

Hunting monsters apparently wasn't. Oh no, when you're with the Winchesters, not only do you get the joy of hunting monsters, you get the pleasure of monsters hunting you.

* * *

Danny was used to having ghosts come after him. He was, after all, the one who kept most of them from their prime haunting spot in Amity Park. He was also the first to sense them in either corporeal or not-quite-fully-formed states, and had already attracted a large deal of attention from other ghosts to the point where Bobby one day spat out that he's as much of a tourist attraction as the Outhouse on a Stick or the World's Largest Historical Quilt. Danny wasn't sure he appreciated the comparison or the sentiment, and sometimes the teen wondered how much easier his life would be if he just pretended the weird ghost abilities he had didn't exist.

But weird ghosts trying to talk to you or lock you in a creepy tourist trap Mystery Shack (weird story, don't ask) or hang your pelt as the mantelpiece of an immortal hunting collection was normal to Danny. Being tracked halfway across the state by a nigh-immortal vengeful shapeshifting creature allergic to cleaning solution was another.

It probably said something about the Winchesters and their cleanliness that they didn't have any borax on them.

The three men were just settling in to the motel room, Danny digging the necessary clothes out of his small backpack on the far bed, but this time facing towards the Winchesters, a nice change in the past week that may have to do with no longer feeling uncomfortable glaring at them at all hours of the day. Dean had largely kept to his word in pretending the soup incident never happened, but Danny moving his bag to within the Winchesters' line of sight was one of the conditions the older man never outright said but silently implied. At least it beat the veiled threat of Dean searching through his belongings to find and confiscate any of the other ghost weapons the teen brought along (at least that's what Danny thought that series of threatening facial expressions meant. It was either that or he'd be stuck eating only soups and bunny salads that made Sam look like as bloodthirsty as a wraith for the rest of his life. Both threats were worth compliance).

But it seemed like a normal (or average might be a better term, nothing was normal for either Danny or the Winchesters) night for the trio when all tense peace was shattered by a banging sound as the locked door burst open and a figure marched inside. Danny didn't recognize the intruder, and from the tense stances of Sam and Dean he was able to quickly deduce that they didn't either, until the middle aged woman threw her head back and revealed a set of inhuman jaws that were somehow larger than her entire face.

That seemed to trigger some familiarity in the Winchesters, as Dean swore and Sam immediately dove for the duffle bag of weapons they brought in from the Impala. Danny was largely ignored by all three as he found himself frozen like a deer in headlights, but once he stopped freaking out the teen sadly realized that the best thing he could do is remain as still as possible. He was in the open space so diving under this side of the bed would leave himself visible from a human vantage point and rolling across the queen mattress without being noticed was likely underestimating the monster's senses, if the frankly terrified reactions of Sam and Dean meant anything.

Danny looked up from his thoughts to see a completely different person standing at the same spot in the doorway. This time a slightly younger man with a military buzzcut and earrings was glaring down Sam and Dean. "Well, if it isn't the Winchesters. I've been looking a long time for you."

Dean was the first to growl back, "Leviathan." He looked over to his left where Sam was, honing in and completely forgetting Danny in his search, "Sam?"

The man finished pawing through the bag, leaving a multitude of high powered assault guns spilling onto the floor. Danny felt himself paled as he realized that those weapons were the rejects that the hunters already knew wouldn't work. "We left the Borax in the trunk Dean."

Another curse.

The Leviathan simply stared on in amusement, not at all feeling threatened by the dangerous men strategizing on how to kill it. When they seemed to realize their hopelessness it threw back its head and laughed. "Oh this is already worth clawing my way out of that pit of cement. Really, I'm kind of offended that you don't remember me after all that fun we had together a few years back. I really enjoyed that sleepover we had and all the fun times you tried to find what made me tickle."

This time Sam was the one who turned his glare on the monster, "Chet."

"The one and only. It's sad how easily I was able to track you down just by running the same credit card analysis. You would think you'd learn not to use the same damn identities when you know that sometime bigger and better is hunting you. Though I guess you thought that killing big bad Dick Roman ended all of this. But you can't recreate that. You can't get rid of me and it's anarchy out there so I'm just going to do whatever I want."

Danny couldn't help himself, he was scared and lost and confused and before he even realized he was voicing the thoughts running through his head his lips had parted slightly from where his mouth fell open and let out a near-silent and elegant "Wha…?"

The monster (Leviathan? Chet?)'s gaze snapped onto the teen and its now human-sized mouth twitched into a smirk. "And I see you brought along a new third wheel. Younger blood after good ol' Bobby's brains bled out? Let's see… would it be more fun to tie him up and recreate all of the wonderful things you did to me on that inferior little human body of his or eat him as a warm up before moving on to you?"

Dean instantly grabbed a rifle that he had been cleaning on the table beside him and pushed himself into the open space between the teen and the intruder. "Danny, run. Check if the bathroom has a window, use the vents, pull that creepy disappearing act I don't care, just run." He held out his gun threateningly as the Leviathan started making its way further into the room, wielding it more as if it had an invisible bayonet and acting fearful of actually touching the Leviathan's skin with the barrel or engaging in hand to hand combat with the creature.

Danny took that as his cue to run, fearful for the Winchesters' safety but following their orders and prioritizing his own. He shuffled to the side until he passed the edge of the bed, backpack lying forgotten at its foot, and starting backing away as quickly as he could until he started to feel the atmosphere seem to congeal around him.

The air was pushing at his back, slowing him down in a way that seemed to want to keep the boy from fleeing. The temperature was dropping significantly, cold fingers paralyzing Danny's muscles like ice water running through his veins and only making it more difficult for his brain to convey to his legs that they needed to  _move_ through the thick haze of cold and panic. The force seemed to be concentrated in the back of the room, behind Danny and far enough away that none of the monster and hunters now focused on taunting and preparing for a clearly one-sided fight even realized what storm was brewing on the far side of the motel room. In fact, the conversation they were having was starting to dull even to Danny's ears as the atmosphere seemed to shift into a more water like substance around him.

No, a more ectoplasm like substance. An atmosphere like the Ghost Zone.

Danny felt far more trapped in growing pressure of this interdimensional fog's embrace than in the freedom he felt from the lack of gravity the few times he ventured into the world beyond. His mind searched through the haze, his connections and sixth senses reaching to try to discover what ghost could potentially be causing this. The answer seemed to coalesce behind him, around him, out of the direct human line of sight that denoted a stronger ghost, but within the realm that Danny could  _see_ , the presence all around him in a haze that was way too strong for such a newborn ghost.

"Bobby."

" _Leviathan_ " was the man's only answer. Despite not being able to see the old man's ghost, Danny's senses could pinpoint the Bobby-like form where the spirit's consciousness was projecting itself in the teen's peripheral vision right out of his human line of sight. The ghost wasn't even focused on the boy stuck in the net of his transitional state pouring into the human realm, all attention was honed in on the monster mockingly starring down the Winchesters.

Then Danny picked up on the  _rage_  permeating through the haze, radiating out of Bobby's form and corrupting everything it touched, working its way around Danny's head and into his lungs through his veins and heart and making the boy see red. He tried to blink the color away, tried to move his hand to hold against his suddenly burning chest, tried to scream "Bobby, don't do it! Calm down! This isn't you! You're not acting like yourself and you're going to regret this!" but the words were torn between dimensions to the point that Danny wasn't even aware of which plane he was shouting the warnings into, wasn't aware of anything, only that Bobby wasn't in control of himself enough to hear or see anything except the Leviathan now shifting itself into copying his form, mocking the Winchesters how it'll be so worth it for the last mortal rendition of Bobby Singer to be the one eating  _his_  boys who got him killed, and Danny wasn't aware of anything besides the  _rage_  and  _presence_  of Bobby drowning him through his connection as the red faded to black and Danny felt his own consciousness fade as it was smothered by the ghost he considered a mentor.

" _You're hurting me…!"_ Was pulled gut-wrenchingly through the pain and the haze as the teen felt himself fading, but he wasn't even sure if he managed to voice the words before the black overpowered everything and he passed out to a blip of electric green.

* * *

Dean had that sudden moment of awareness that he was staring down his death. He had felt it a number of times before, but it never changed the heart-stopping sensation of tunnel vision honing in on the monster looming over his prone form, helpless as much by the sudden human urge to give up and play dead in a vain hope it'll go away as by whatever injuries he had not yet received. The roaring of a truck and the howls of hellhounds echoed in his ears as a distant reminders of the first times this feeling occurred and Dean couldn't help but pause and wonder at which family member would sacrifice to bring him back this time, bitterly amending the question of if there were any left at all.

The Leviathan was wearing Bobby's face as it marched over to him, wrenching the gun out of his tight grip and laughing about how many beautiful possibilities it had to make the most out of killing them. Through the raging panic dominating Dean's awareness he heard it remark that the temptation to shift in one brother while killing the other was strong, but its real qualms were against Bobby, and while it can't eat a dead man it can have its revenge by killing the only people it cared about in his form. Maybe it'll eat that little boy in one (or both) of the Winchesters' forms, and the reminder of Danny made Dean painfully realize that maybe Bobby was indeed watching and wondering if the psychic got out okay. He berated that he was too paralyzed by fear to turn his head and look.

Chet was just leaning over Dean, moving his fingers down in preparation to lightly run them over Dean's vulnerable skin and steal his shape in a show of victory before digging into his meal, when a green blast fired from across the room and knocked the Leviathan into the wall.

The monster seemed dazed and surprised by the attack, then began howling in pain as the toxic green slime attached to it started eating into its skin, fizzing with the similar black gooey substance that made up the Leviathan's blood and dissolving the inhabiting blood wherever the two met.

Standing on the far side of the motel room, only a few feet back from where he was when Dean had asked him to run was Danny, standing tall with his arm outstretched in a way reminiscent of Sam on demon blood with a thin trail of black and neon green ectoplasm running down his nose.

_"Ỳ͓͖̫ͅo͇̜͈̙ṷ̳͔̙̭̗͖ ͚́k̟͇e̮̳͞e͘p͇̥̥̘̜͇ ̼̟̗͓̟͘ý̘̗͚͖o͔͔͚u̲r͕͔͇̖͇ ̦̫͉̝͚̭d͓͈̻̼̪́i̪r̬͚͜t͎y̢ ̦̗̺͈̥͘c̺̻̞ͅl̺͈̬͢a͔͎͎̩̘ws̠̖͕̩ͅ ̜̳̥̫̤a̠̜̦̘̠͍w̗̮̝a͏̫̬̞̳̟̰͙y ̹͚f͇̠̫̜̞͓̀r͏̤̘͙̦o͎̤͚̭̥̗͚m̮͍ ̱͉m̶̭͚̭̹̺y̮̦ ̜͜t̮͖̲̜ͅw̖͉͓͚̜ọ̜̣̯̟ ̞͓̙̗͔bo̲̞̭̘̟̲͖y̨̥͎̠͉s̪͚̩͖͡."_

The voice coming out of the teen clearly did not belong to Danny, the possession dragging his voice a full octave lower that the normally bright, if sarcastic, tone Dean had gotten used to associating with the teen unless you had him feeling morally righteous. The medium's eyes were fixed in an unwavering glare on the Leviathan, now the same toxic neon green of the blast he had clearly fired painting his irises and pupils, matched by either the remnants of the first beam or the preparations of a second now pooling harmlessly around the outstretched hand, giving the teen an unnatural and terrifying appearance.

The words the ghost said seemed to resonate more in Sam, who muttered, "Bobby?"

And suddenly the situation became all the more clear in Dean's mind. The voice, its familiar gruffness present even in the unholy screeches as it twisted Danny's normally clear tones. The protectiveness, the obsession Danny had always been quick to warn about, and how quickly Bobby's soul and spirit corrupted when a Leviathan was in the room, even back when he helped them as a ghost the first time.

Shit.

Bobby, upon realizing that the Leviathan was too incapacitated by his first attack to get up and fight back, walked calmly across the room to stand in front of it, completely ignoring Sam and Dean as he moved. Dean tried to prop himself up on his elbows where he had fallen to the floor, and he saw Sam moving to do the same, when the ghost-possessed teen and cocked his head as he examined the fallen Leviathan, and Dean suddenly felt a pressing weight on his chest holding him in place.

The ghost stood before Chet in his vessel, staring down before opening its mouth and letting more of the possession garbled tongue radiate through the air.  _"Yò͡ù͝ ̴͟͠th̸̡͢in͏̧͜k̀ ̀͝ỳo͏u ͜c͘͡a̴͝n̡͟ ͡j̶͏͠ù͞s̛t̀ ̕͠k͜e͢ep̡ ҉̧͠c͟la̵͞w̴͘i̧n̡̕ģ ̸̡ ý͡o͜ur͞ ҉ ́͟͡wa̢̡y̵̸͞ ́ba̷̕ck̛ ͞͝o̷͢ut̸̀t͘a̢͘ ̵w̧͝h̢̡́a͏̧t̸̛̛ę͠v̧͏̛e̸͟ŕ̵ ̴͝p̵i̴ţ I̴ ̡́bứr̶̢͠y ͘͠yo͢͞u̡͝ ̢͏i̕͡ņ ́͏ańd͝ c͡om̵e̶͘͠ ͏̨a̡͝f̧̢tȩ̸͢r̨͟ ̶my̢ ͝b̸̛͟oy̛s̕?̵ ̛I͜ ̀͞m͢͝a̡y̷͡ ǹ̴̀o͞t b́͘e ̸̶҉a͜bl͠͏e̶͢ ̀t͟͡o k͡͞͡i͢͢͡l̶̷l͟͞͠ y͞ó͢u͞͝ ̶͟aś à hu͢m̸͞a͏͡n ̀͟a̴̛͝ņ̷͡ym̵o͡re̸͟,̧͢͜ ̸b͢u̸͟t͝ I̧̛ ̴c̶̸̕an ̧͜͟k̛e̷̴͡e̷͢p ̧͝͝ḉom̀i̵͡n̶͡g͏ ba͘c̴k̷ ̀́ ą͘n̕͝d̴͠͡ ̸ k͢é̕͏e͞p̛͟͟ ̧͘ t̴͢͝r̸̴à̴s͟h̡ ̀͠li̵̴k̀͝e͏͏̶ ̡͢͡ y̧ǫ̶u͘ ̸͘ fr͠o͟͜͠m̨ ̀͜҉p̶o̕ppí͜n̴̴g̶̵̨ ̶̛u͘p̸.̴͏"_

And with that Bobby bent down, in a way mockingly similar to how Chet was standing over Dean just a minute before, and slammed Danny's glowing fist into the hole in the Leviathan's chest, watching with a twisted grin as the ectoplasm worked its way through the Leviathan's body, not unlike how they killed angels, burning everything away until all that was left of the creature was the scorch marks and dents the original blast of ectoplasm left on the motel drywall.

As the Leviathan evaporated away, so did the force holding Sam and Dean in place, and the Winchesters were quick to jump to their feet with a mutual cry of "Bobby!" before moving towards the possessed teen. Dean wasn't sure what to feel, but felt the happiness at having some communication with Uncle Bobby was warring with the realization that he was also an unstable spirit that just brutally killed a Leviathan and possessed the young teen he had left the brothers to look out for.

Bobby turned and faced them, his eyes still glowing green but with a much softer fire and his vision seeming to have a hard time focusing on their forms. Dean paused as he realized that there were so many things he wanted to say. Words to Bobby that he hadn't been able to muster since banishing his ghost, apologies for what he did, questions about what happened and about Danny and his abilities, anger and scolding for what the man  _just did_ , and most of all just basking in the reassuring comfort of  _Bobby_.

But all of that faded away as the electric green receded into blue into white as the teen's eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed on the floor. Sam caught him in the same stride that had been moving towards the ghost formerly possessing the kid, and the younger Winchester looked up at his older brother questioningly.

The only words that Dean could fully form was "the green laser was new."

Somehow watching Sam's emotion-ridden expression sour into the classic bitchface was a reminder to Dean that things would become normal again (or average, given that travelling the world hunting with a teenage medium who was apparently liable to possession by revenge-driven allies in the afterlife could never truly be normal). His heart still tore in two as he watched Sam carry the teen towards the backseat of the Impala as he shoved all of the strewn guns back into the duffle bag, and made his way over to Danny's bag to grab the kid's backpack, more tempted than ever to rummage through it in search of clues about the mysterious teen's secrets.

Dean was most guilty in the fact that he couldn't decide which outcome he wanted from Danny: to protect the innocent kid so he could choose whether to live a normal life or that of a hunter and save others, or to discover how the teen connected with Bobby in an attempt to get one of his too few family members back. The kid didn't deserve it, but Bobby didn't either, and Bobby's ghost had enough experience to save twice as many people and hunters as the teen ever would.

There was also the question of which of them was providing that power.

Dean slammed the trunk and made his way into the Impala, turning up Metallica to full blast without even reading the harsh look he got from Sam to determine if his little brother wanted to talk or was concerned for Danny sleeping in the backseat. In Dean's opinion it didn't matter either way. The teen was unconscious either way and Dean wasn't in the mood to talk, though he would make sure that Danny was ready to spill whatever had happened when he woke up.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters leave Danny behind to go on a ghost hunt, but not everything is what either party expected. First of a two-chapter arc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off: SO MANY APOLOGIES FOR THE WAIT! I feel even worse because I finished this chapter over a year ago, but have been stuck on the second part of the arc in Chapter 6 and busy with a ton of stuff going on in life (fought through and lot of family problems and now working abroad for the first time so been busy applying/preparing for the job and now fairly occupied by travel and culture shock). 
> 
> I do want to thank everyone who's continued to read, kudos, and especially comment here, you all keep me from completely forgetting this fic with everything else going on, you're all definitely the life-blood of this maybe half-dead story! I have most of Chapter 6 done (it's already almost twice as long as any other chapter) and hopefully will have that up within a week or two, but I'm travelling every weekend this month so it'll all depend on whether or not I'm able to write during layovers.
> 
> Thank you again so much for your patience and support and enjoy!

After a few weeks on the road it became easy to read the secret Winchester Hunting Code Book.

For example, Danny could always tell the minute that the men found the latest targets for their hunts. No matter how aimlessly they wandered at times between searching for jobs, it was a hard and fast rule that the boys always left a roadside diner or hotel from the direction they came in before driving onto the main highway or into the nearest center of town, to better play whatever tourist road-trip they hoped the average passerby suspected. Any deviation from the usual, preceded by subtle whispers and gestures to a newspaper clipping, was a certain sign of a routine hunt.

They did apparently have other, more important things they were trying to do besides roaming the continental US in search of supernatural beings to kill, but they were easily managed by clipped coded phone calls on certain burner phones when they thought Danny was asleep.

This hunt was different, a sort of middle ground between the sealed-lips secrets and the slighty-more-open-but-mainly-because-it’s-impossible-to-hide-everything-from-someone-you’re-travelling-with-for-the-foreseeable-future secrets. Between the unreadable looks Sam sent his way every five minutes and the silent determination Dean drove with, suggesting that the brothers had one of their infamous fights sometime Danny hadn’t noticed, the teen felt paranoia prickling up his spine.

Then again, those weren't all that different from the normal clues Danny usually got when the men suddenly decided to switch from aimless wandering across the country or hiding their tracks from God-knows-whatever’s hunting them to chasing after their new prey. Although the teen still had very little knowledge of the relevant parts of the Winchesters’ history, particularly their still-living or undead enemies, after the Leviathan incident Danny didn’t want to know the answer to those hypothetical questions. Besides, any decent question he posed towards either of the hunters, especially Dean, only led to anywhere from twice what he asked to a whole interrogation being thrown right back at him.

The teen still occasionally freaked out over waking up in the backseat of the Impala after he opened his aching eyes following the Leviathan incident to Sam taking a rare turn behind the wheel and Dean practically looming over him demanding answers he didn’t have.

Well, he had some, but not all the Winchesters wanted. And since sharing most of the answers he did have were mutually exclusive with keeping his life, in Danny’s book the choice was pretty obvious.

It didn’t help the perpetual distrust issue, but Danny quickly adapted to the sideways glances and whispers behind his back. He was used to being the oddball in Casper High, just being a Fenton and a loser were enough to do that, let alone when the ghost weirdness started and the occasional rumors began spreading. Being surrounded by people who barely trusted him with the time of day, let alone the subject of their conversations wasn’t new, it was just the lack in diversity of faces that was hard to adapt to.

He was even used to his parents getting a phone call from one of the few respected paranormal investigators who were willing to tell the Fentons about the latest conference they had _very purposefully not been invited to_ and running off like armed to the teeth puppies in order to talk or hunt ghosts. Which, when he thought about it (he had a lot of time to, practically chained to the backseat of the Impala or the bed of whatever motel room the Winchesters were staying in as they _still_ didn’t really know what to do with him) wasn’t all that different from the situation now.

It beat high school.

Danny knew they had contacts. Sam and Dean would call up several people every couple of days, either just to check in (almost militarily, as if it was a habit to double-check that key acquaintances were still alive) or to exchange information. Yet whichever brother took the phone always made sure to glance his way and leave the room unless they were riding in the Impala, and even then any information was written in small script (on Sam’s part) on a worn legal pad and key phrases often used were obviously in code.

So when the contacts called more than usual and both brothers went silent, when the conversations and more-occasional-than-they-really-ought-to-be fights turned into whispers and backwards glances that eventually died down if he did so little as crack an eye while pretending to be asleep, when he once heard Sam squeak _just_ loud enough for Danny’s enhanced hearing to pick up, “Dean, we can’t _lock_ him in a hotel room for a week! He’s what, sixteen?! … And the Impala is no better!” Danny just knew that a big hunt was coming. Add in the extra bags of rock salt in the trunk and a night of Dean loading it into bullets and they were practically screaming ‘ **we’re going on a ghost hunt and not taking you with us because you might cue in all the ghosts!** ’ to his face.

Then came the time when, just in case Danny missed it (no matter what Tucker said he is not _that_ much of a Clueless One), the ghost showed up and actually screamed it in his face.

“ **AGHHHHHHH! AUGHHHHHHHH!! AAAAUGGGHHHHHHHH!!!”**

“Holy fudgemuffins!” Danny ungracefully fell out of the chair he was sitting in as he leaned against the desk that now had a ghostly disembodied head sticking out of it.

He hadn’t seen an unfamiliar ghost in almost the entire time he had travelled with the Winchesters, what with the Ghost Portal still being chained up in Amity and the ambient spectral energy being so much lower here that ghosts were more tightly bound to their haunts. Not that he was allowed towards anything that might be haunted recently. The Winchesters even hastily turned away from one motel that looked _too_ run down, muttering something along the lines of ‘if something that seedy doesn’t have at least one dead chick running around there has to be something much more supernatural going on.’

Sitting back up from his prone position on the floor, Danny looked up to see the ghost, continuing to scream. Running back through just a few seconds ago, the teen let out a string of actual curses under his breath out of a refusal to habitually start sounding like Vlad when startled and looked back up to confirm that yes, the ghost was still screaming.

Seeing the glowing ectoplasmic outline of intangibility going through the body of the desk Danny noted with a sigh that at least he had a body.

“So. Nearly Headless Nick… Always Screaming Dead Guy, you mind, you know, trying to calm down and actually tell me what’s going on?”

“ **AGHHHHHHH! AUGHHHHHHHH!! AAAAUGGGHHHHHHHH!!!”**

“… Apparently not.” Danny faced down the ghost and sighed as he realized he’d have to take a different tactic. While he was better at breaking through to the average ghost and starting up conversations than normal humans, ones that were too far out of their minds would occasionally be closed off to even spectral energy like that Danny’s connection gave off. Ghost echos were the hardest, being practically locked in the memories of their terror, but this guy was close.

Danny leaned over into the ghost’s face and started waving his hands, “Hey, dude, do you mind telling me what’s going on?” Still seeing no response Danny mentally check off attention grabbing and moved on to step two: anger.

“Hey! Ghost! You had to have sought me out personally. I’ve been here two days and haven’t had the slightest sensation of a ghost or a haunting nearby, so why are you here?!” Nothing. “I’m not above just locking you up in the thermos until you chill out if you won’t talk!” The screaming continued.

Danny rubbed his face in his hands. He really hated step three: physical interference.

Wincing at the intangible neck bones sticking through the surface of the hotel desk Danny prepared himself for the uncomfortable sensation of trying to poke something without a physical form. Sticking his hand in the air with the hesitance of something searching for a light switch in the dark, the psychic reached his arm out further and further until almost his entire hand was inside the confines of the ghost’s skull. Danny shivered at the disgusting sensation of breaching the ghost’s form: it was like shoving your hand into a vat of jello that happened to be made of ectoplasmically charged human flesh.

Danny then started doing the same hand waving he had done earlier, wiggling all of his fingers in a random pattern to create maximum disturbances in the ectoplasm. “Hey, can you hear me? Or feel me? I’m trying to talk to you!”

The background screaming broke off before it was resumed by the younger party, who in a lightning move was cradling his injured hand in the other.

“You bit my hand!”

The (somewhat) decapitated head on the table simply spit the taste out of its mouth in response. “You were jiggling your fingers around in my brain so I assure you the sensation was equally unpleasant for the both of us!” It spoke in a British sounding accent. Huh, maybe the Nearly Headless Nick commentary wasn’t that far off.

But Danny wasn’t about to be that rude to the ghost. He wasn’t a little kid and he knew how to hold his tongue. “Trust me, it already wasn’t fun for either or us.” Okay, so maybe his etiquette wasn’t the best, but to be fair he was a teenager and holding his tongue was one thing, but holding in a sassy reply was another.

The two just stared at each other blankly for a moment.

“So what are you doing here? There’s not much ambient ectoplasm around so you must have already had a goal rather than just wandering into this plane three inches from my face, and in my personal experience not even energy sickness is enough to make a ghost start continuously screaming.”

The ghost turned its head (which was really weird when not able to see the rest of it) to take in its surroundings before realizing the awkward position and floating out from within the table. “My apologies young Ghost Whisperer but I am in need of your assistance.”

“Ok, what is it you need help with? And how did you find me- scratch that how did you even find out about me?” Not-Nearly-So-Headless Nick moved to open his mouth before Danny felt the need to cut him off with yet another comment, “And I don’t know where you got that title from but never call me that again. I’m Danny, not Jennifer Love-Hewitt.”

“I assure you young Ghost Whisp-Danny,” the spirit quickly corrected himself at the teen’s deadpan glare, “that the situation is quite dire. The home my family and I have been residing in for the past two centuries has gained a- _disruptive_ new resident.” Danny had to shake his head slightly to stop racking his little history knowledge to estimate how likely it was that Not-Actually-Headless-Ghost was British and focus on the problem. “We were hoping to settle the affair internally, pardon me for the rudeness but we had doubted that a human could do much in the business of ghosts regardless of the rumors traveling the Ghost Zone, until our unruly neighbor garnered the attention of human hunters. Now I fear that there is little we can do to keep his head down before they come down on all our heads! **AGHHHHHHH!** ”

Danny covered his ears with his hands as the ghost started its screaming again. But at least now that he knew where it came from –fear- he could do something to stop it. “Hey! You’re going to have to keep your head on straight if we’re going to do anything to help!” Oh great, and now he was making unbearable head puns. Just got to plow on a _head_.

Danny paused and looked around the room at the bare supplies the Winchesters had left him as he considered how to best phrase things without setting off the uncontrollably terrified ghost. “Look. I think I might have heard of these hunters coming your way and we’re going to have to hurry if we want to beat them to…” The teen stalled as he realized that the hunters had been too suspicious to even tell him where they were going, and by how long it’s been it’s probably at least out-of-state. Danny felt his hand reflexively scratch the back of his neck at the awkward feeling, “Wherever it is you live. I’m guessing it took you two whole days to get here?”

Head-Happily-Attached-to-his-Body-Thank-You-Very-Much-and-Also-Not-Named-Nick just looked at the boy in awe. “So the whispers that you were gifted beyond your Sight were true.”

Danny froze for a good minute before he realized that the ghost was referring to his educated guess and had no way of knowing that Danny knew how long the Winchesters had been after him because he _lived with_ said hunters. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a freak.” The teen looked away for a second before continuing on.

“But unless my math is worse than even my teachers think I doubt we have time to get back the way you came. Not to mention I don’t have any reliable human transportation and I doubt you’re in fit enough condition to carry me for two days straight.” Indeed, the ghost ahead of him was already starting to partially flicker into complete invisibility. It was not enough for the entity to notice he was falling apart (Danny worried that pointing it out might send it into another unnecessary panic), but it was clear that this ghost had never been strong enough to exist without the energy of its particular haunt, and was already starting to fade away.

Danny was somewhat grateful for the fact: unbound spirits tended to also have fewer ties to sanity and were more likely to Rage, but was also in awe that the ghost had apparently cared enough about his home and family to break away from the very laws of metaphysics (as he understood them) for 48 hours.

The teen forced himself to shake the musings out again- man, who would’ve thought this long in the back of a car alone with his thoughts would’ve made it this hard to focus when he needed to?- and reminded himself that they didn’t have time now. “I have a friend I can call who should be able to get us there faster, hopefully that way we’ll make up for whatever head start the Winchest- ** _hunters_** have.”

Danny backed away into the center of the room -even if he didn’t need the space for what he was going to do it made him feel better not being cramped- and mustered up the courage to call for the ghost he had in mind. Danny squashed down the doubt in the back of his mind telling him he was out of practice: he hadn’t truly called on a ghost (or done any of what he normally did, for that matter) in the weeks he had been with the Winchesters.

Huh, guess Bobby actually managed to follow through on giving him a vacation. Even if it was ten times more life-threatening than daily life.

It was a strange feeling, like a hole opening in the back of the throat and a force stronger than Danny once thought humanly possible to muster coming out of his vocal chords. It struck him deep in the core and he felt like yelling, even though the name only came out of his mouth like a whisper- a reflex he had trained so as not to alert his parents or any passer-bys in Amity Park.

_“W̻͖̲͖ul͖͖͕̻̹̺f͚͚.”_

Danny waited a minute, then looked over at Satisfactorily-Heady-Nate before turning back to the open space and unmade motel bed in front of him and sighing.

_“W͓͚͔̱̖̰ṷ͈̺̖̞ḽ̥̹͎ͅf͙̱̖͕.”_

Still nothing.

Danny knew better than to immediately freak out that his friend wasn’t coming to the rescue. There were dozens of reasons why Wulf might not be showing up, it could even be as simple as the fact that Danny had never tried to call his friend from outside of Amity Park and that it just didn’t reach here.

The teen didn’t know the specifics of how calling on specific ghosts worked, but he knew it was more akin to sticking his mouth through an interdimensional peephole than the big fancy summons Hollywood made it out to be. Danny knew that there was a very good probability Wulf was somewhere where he simply couldn’t hear him, and the psychic also knew that there were much more efficient ways to séance so that the ghost would be forced to come. Sadly, those were not too time-efficient or too friendly on the ghost, and Danny really didn’t want to be rude to one of his only true ghost friends.

The thought made Danny cycle through the possibilities of other ghosts he could try, and unfortunately those who would be willing to do a short-term favor without bartering for something in return were quite low. His heart sank as the bitter voice in the back of his head told him Sidney would’ve been the best option, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. The Winchesters had struck, and despite Danny not hating them for it, the fact remained that they would again unless Danny could have some spectral help breaking out of this motel room.

The teen groaned as he realized that realistically there was only one person on whom he could call. And Danny wasn’t really feeling comfortable in his presence after what happened the last time. Just the thought made the room feel cold and thick and his head slightly numb.

But Danny saw the ghost he should really stop mentally **_nick_** naming and just ask for his title out of the corner of his eye and realized that his discomfort wasn’t in any way worth a life. Afterlife. Whatever.

_“B͉̥̦͘o̷̞b̶̥͚̜b̨y̹̲̱.”_

The grizzled ghost was there instantly.

“You didn’t have to use your big fancy voice you idjit. I was in the room the whole time.” And _there_ was the other reason Danny didn’t like contemplating how whisper-summons actually worked. Because every time it led him to the uncomfortable conclusion that ghosts who could hear him were likely already in a bordering plane just out of Sight watching him the whole time.

“You could’ve just gone to tell Wulf I’m looking for him if you knew why I was about to call you.”

Bobby floated a step (a human length step, there really isn’t a way to describe the length of a pace while floating) closer to Danny and adjusted his hat. “I’m not the one refusing to answer a friend who’s trying to talk ta ya just cause you’re uncomfortable hearing their apologies for something they clearly didn’t do.”

“Bobby you outright possessed me and then _killed_ someone! Of course I’m going to be mad! And uncomfortable. Because even if you weren’t in your right mind you have to acknowledge that it _was. still. you!_ ” Danny took a deep breath as he calmed himself down, getting angry with Bobby around wasn’t going to make things any safer. “And how many times do I have to tell you that writing ‘idjit’ in the condensation on the side of my shower is not a polite way of saying we need to talk?”

Bobby leaned forward and opened his mouth to reply when Danny saw the still-flickering figure of the ghost he was supposed to be helping on the side of the room watching and the boy held up his hand.

Seeing the face of his ghostly mentor scowl Danny made his point out loud. “Look. I’m sorry I couldn’t bear to talk to you back then, and I promise we can fight this out later. But the point remains that if we’re going to save that ghost and his family we need to get Wulf and stop the Winchesters before it’s too late.”

Danny felt the room drop a degree and saw Bobby’s still angry face darken before he realized his mistake. “Look, boy. I didn’t ask you to hang around Sam and Dean so you can run around _stopping_ them. They’re-“

“Hey hey hey! I’m sorry!” Danny cut him off before the Rage could get any further. It was easy to forget that Bobby was a young ghost despite being so strong, and that whatever happened in his past that caused him to nearly ‘die’ again and stop haunting the Winchester probably didn’t add any stability into the mix. “I’m sorry it came out wrong! I don’t want to do anything to stop the W- to get in _Sam and Dean’s_ way. I’m just trying to save some innocent spirits and make sure they don’t do anything they might regret.”

Seeing Bobby returning to normal, but not quite calm enough to be of assistance, Danny kept on that path. “That’s what you wanted me to do, right? You care about Sam and Dean, want to make sure that someone else is looking out for them _(even if said someone’s really too busy and not in a position to be looking out after two grown giants)_.” Danny muttered off to the side, luckily without Bobby catching on, “You want them to be okay, and happy, and not constantly worried that they’re killing things that don’t deserve to die when there are other ways out there. I get it. You’re so worried about the two that it’s keeping you here, tied to whatever could possibly help them, and you don’t want them to get hurt, even if it’s better in the long run.”

Looking up at Bobby’s face for the first time, Danny saw it was frozen in a still expression that went against everything Danny had seen of the cold old man. Spirits –even those who had barely begun to lose hold of themselves- tended to do that. “I get it, even if you sometimes think I’m an idjit kid who was thrust with powers that he can’t really understand or handle, and trust me, I think that just as often as you do. Probably more. I’m even a little bit jealous, and really flattered for them, that they have a friend who cares for them _so much,_ and maybe one day I hope do too. But for now you have to trust me, _just like eventually they will too_ , that I’m going to help. I don’t know them anywhere near as well as you did- ** _do_** , but I want them to be happy. I just want this ghost’s family to be happy too.”

Danny cut off with an awkward silence and just stared at the ground as he waited for Bobby to respond. His mind immediately went to the possibility of Bobby getting angry again, offended that this little twerp thought he could understand his thought process, and Danny had to swallow down the unbearable fear that he might lose another of his too-few friends.

The silence stretched out like that, Nearly-Not-There-Nathan just floating there probably feeling as awkward watching the fight as the two participants combined, until finally Bobby Singer realized it fell on him to make the first move. The old ghost sighed and twisted his trucker hat in his hands before putting it back on- what was with him and somewhat adopting emotionally dense teenage boys who were sometimes too wise for their own good?

“It’s not easy accepting it, boy, but you got a point. I was wrong to lash out at you like that for Sam and Dean. Both times.” The teen looked up with a small smile that reminded him way too much of the face Sam used to make as Danny accepted that that was as close as the old man would come to an apology.

“Now you stay here and I’ll be back in a minute. We got some boys to knock some sense into before they keep on being idjits.” At the kid’s nod and continued stillness Bobby had to shoot him a small glare. “And pack up that ghost gear of yours, you idjit! I swear…”

“Lord knows you three couldn’t bother to stop being idjits by yourselves.” Bobby paused in his rhetorical musing as he slipped between the planes, leaving the teen psychic to get things ready on his Side.

“Never mind, not Lord knows. I swear that wingnut Cas only makes all those boys worse.” And for the first time since Bobby felt himself slip weeks back, the gruff old ghost ghosted what could accurately be called a smile.


	6. Betrayal at the House on the Hill (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny follows a ghost straight into the Winchesters' latest hunt to try to save innocent bystanders. Will he save them or will he get caught? And does either side know exactly what they're walking in to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been over a month since I uploaded the last chapter, but in my defense this is the first weekend since then I've been in the country, so my only writing time has been if a train or a plane happens to be writing conducive.
> 
> That said, I did bring a good amount of fic as an apology, with the draft of this chapter when finished today clocking in over 10k words, more than twice the longest chapter in this story thus far and by far the longest chapter I've ever written. Once I realized it would be over 7k I debated whether or not to split it in two, and since it made it past 10k I figured I'd probably do that just so it's not awkward for people reading from the beginning (even though the chapters have grown from 1k to 4k).
> 
> I'll be out of town Thursday through next Monday, but I'll aim for posting the first time I'm available between Sunday night and Tuesday. Everything's already edited and the draft's even in my ffn doc manager, so this time there's 0 chance of me missing that deadline (unless I get kidnapped, hospitalized, etc. Seriously if part two isn't up by the end of next week this is the time to worry I'm dead).
> 
> Chapter title is named after one of my favorite board games, it was my first venture into something more exotic than Monopoly and it was a ton of fun. I also may or may not have modeled a house and drawn up a haunt in my head to help layout the house. Anyone who knows the game and mentions their favorite story in the reviews will make me squeak when I read it I swear.
> 
> Not going to make you wait any longer, so have at it and hope it was worth the wait!

Danny packed up his ghost gear in less than a minute.

Soon three claws cut into the air, cutting a green tear between this realm and the next, and then criss-crossed over itself to create a shortcut that the psychic could fit through. Danny sent a grateful smile and a short thanks in Esperanto to Wulf as he passed towards it, gesturing for the ghost (who happened to be named Nathaniel, not nearly as ironic as Nick would've been but close enough that Danny had to stifle giggles) to go first.

After all, Nathaniel already looked like he was starting to fade away without his haunt.

Bobby was waiting on the edge of and into the rift itself, his grizzled face somehow not looking nearly as uncomfortable or out of place as it should leaning on such an unnatural tear between two worlds like it was any old truck or other mortal form of transportation. He reached out a semi-tangible hand and rested it on the teen's shoulder.

"Don't let those idjits get in any more trouble than they need to." Danny gulped and nodded as he understood the weight the statement carried as both an apology and permission rolled into one.

"I won't. And I trust you to be there to pull me out if I do?" Danny pulled his own statement into a question with a taunting smirk, knowing full well the hunter would see its full reciprocation. Apology and forgiveness, for both this and the Leviathan incident, with maybe a hint of permission should the need arise again.

And the grizzled dead face showed it, crinkling with a passion that made Danny oddly think of a grandfather figure he'd never really had. "Bah!" Bobby laughed, "I'm more worried about you getting yourself killed than them. This isn't their first rodeo, kid."

"And you're acting like it's mine? You know I've been dealing with this stuff for a while before meeting you Bobby. Besides, I've hung around enough with death to know a thing or two about surviving it." The teen's laugh stretched to hide a grimace of fear as he focused ahead, leaving Bobby muttering under his breath with concern about N-whatever-that-ghost-who-chased-the-kid-down-here's-name-is as Danny ventured through to the other side.

The kid's heroism, duty, and innocence was almost enough to make Bobby regret that the Winchesters' plan to keep Danny away from this hunt worked out this way instead. Danny deserved to be protected, even if he and his boys did it for entirely different intentions. After all, none of the three young men he looked after now would likely approve of his end goals, even the ghost whisperer who had put the most pieces together.

But that wouldn't stop him. Nothing would. That's why they call it an obsession.

* * *

The house Danny stepped out of Wulf's portal into was _cold_ and it was _dull._

It wasn't cold as in haunted house cold, or dull as in normal house dull, but it had a drop in temperature compared to the world before passing within its walls and a stark stillness as if some curator had decided that the Victorian home needed to be perfectly preserved. Contrasting that was an atmosphere that suggested that someone had poured a lot of energy into livening the place up, not seeming to realize that the house itself had decreed that nothing _live_ ly or even a _live_ should grace the place again.

Apparently it also housed a resident intent on upholding that.

Nearly-Headless-and-everything-else-less-because-he-was-currently-missing Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen, and Danny couldn't help but worry as he turned around to look for his guide. On one hand, the ghost clearly would need to recuperate after two days without the spectral energy of his haunt, and it was all too likely the man was checking in on the family he chased after Danny to protect. But the psychic couldn't help but worry that something happened to the ghost he would need to consult about whatever intrusion made this haunting turn violent, and he couldn't crush the guilt that in the small time he spent talking to Bobby the invader or the Winchesters could've gotten him.

The repeating pound of footsteps creaking on old wood coming from what sounded like just outside the house echoed that thought, and the obvious humanity of the sound informing Danny that the Winchesters indeed must already be here.

Danny thought about how terrible his luck was, but quickly realized it would be a miraculous stroke given his luck to expect anything better.

Then the teen realized he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking out towards the direction the footsteps were coming from, and he quickly bolted to hug the wall before retreating in the opposite direction.

Luckily years of companionship with the dead, as well as a lifetime of trying to sneak past unwanted confrontations with bullies or his parents, gave Danny the advantage of stealth in this mission.

Danny found himself passing into the dining room, and sticking his head around the corner he could see that he was across a main hallway from the living room, with the kitchen covering the room between his end of the hallway and the front door where the Winchesters could be heard picking at the lock. Right by the entrance was a stairway to the second floor, which given the decent size of the downstairs entertaining areas would probably contain a handful of bedrooms and maybe an office, but not much else. If there was indeed a family of ghosts living here, the haunt most likely is centered upstairs.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply in his core to better sense the energy of the house, Danny confirmed that whatever background energy was coming from the spirits, it permeated the entire building, but the vast majority was on the upper floor.

The continuing wiggling of the front lock and the direct line of sight from the front door to the stairwell made it obvious to Danny he couldn't risk dashing upstairs without being spotted. The Winchesters weren't idiots or amateurs at lock-picking and would likely finish any second. Also Danny noted with a slight frown that he hadn't thought to change out of his favorite outfit of t-shirt and jeans. On one hand at least he wasn't barging in to conflict negotiation in his pajamas, but on the other hand he'd stick out like a sore thumb against the Victorian décor if he tried to hide in the corner of Sam or Dean's eye.

Hearing the sound of rattling increase drastically as the men (Danny could easily envision it as Dean picking the lock while Sam held the duffle bags) moved on from twisting the lock to tugging at the rusted hinges, Danny dashed his way into a dark corner of the linen closet off the dining room, keeping the door open and hoping he wasn't spotted. He'd wait until he could make a clean sneak towards the stairs.

He didn't think the Winchesters would appreciate the mysterious kid they locked in a hotel room two days ago _beating_ them to an undisclosed location that must be at least hundreds of miles away.

"Finally! With a door like that this place must've been condemned for over a century!" Dean's relieved voice carried a booming echo compared to the dead silence of the house only moments before.

The silence carried even the sound of Sam lifting the gun bags off the doorstep as he followed his brother in. "I told you before Dean, town records show this house has had consistent residents up until a couple years ago."

"-when all the families moving in reported this place going from uptown to Halloween town, I got it." Dean finished, looking around the main hallway and the footsteps turning towards the living room.

Danny let out a sigh: all that he needed now was for Sam to follow his brother and Danny would be free to hug the walls of the kitchen across the hall until he could make a break for the stairs.

"Hey, Sammy. You notice something weird here?" He heard Dean call out, followed by a buzz and whine Danny quickly placed as the homemade EMF/Walkman he had seen Dean fiddle with in the motel room before.

It sounded different from the clearly non-responsive it was the night Danny first saw it (which had seemed to almost disappoint Dean, who was clearly trying and failing to subtly wave it around Danny), and this time the teen feared they might take that to go straight upstairs and block him from meeting up with Nathaniel before the Winchesters might get to the ghosts.

Sam must've had similar thoughts regarding the EMF as Danny could practically _hear_ the raised eyebrow. "You mean besides the spectral energy readings coming from almost everywhere?"

"I'm not talking about what spooky stuff we're getting, Sammy, I'm talking about what spooky stuff we're _missing_." Dean paused, and there was clearly the gap where Sam must've sent him some look or a shrug. "If this place is haunted enough to get condemned and has been sitting here empty for over two years, then why isn't there a buildup of dust?"

Sam's steps had a hint of uncertainty as he followed his brother into the living room. Danny took it as his cue to slip out of the linen closet and back up against the wall between the dining room and kitchen. "Someone's been cleaning."

"Some _thing's_ been cleaning. We both know that door hasn't been opened in at least a year and there's no back door in the floor plans." Dean cut in. "And I don't know about you, but I don't think we've ever seen a ghost that keeps house before."

"Are you starting to think that this might be a 'maybe Danny has a point' kind of thing?" The phrase made Danny's entire posture go rigid. There was a clear dash of skepticism in Sam's tone when he said it, but the teen could hear that it was a word for word quote that had somehow entered the Winchesters' terminology. What did it mean if Sam and Dean clearly still believed he was wrong about ghosts being peaceful, but were willing enough to debate the idea that they had clearly discussed it out of his earshot, and would look and consider potential evidence in his favor?

"I'm starting to think that someone still died here and this Casper's gonna keep on killing people who live here unless we stop it. If anything, weird ghostly habits are a sign that the kind of ghost Danny's convinced are safe might be plotting to kill people, or worse: using him to do it."

Sam's voice went soft at the anger in Dean's, and Danny found himself so enraptured in his eavesdropping that the ghosts upstairs were all but forgotten. "You're worried about Bobby."

"Of course I'm worried about Bobby."

The emphasis that it was their mentor they cared about rather than him only made the pit of ice growing in Danny's chest go deeper as Dean continued.

"You know he was never exactly stable since he… since he died, but that thing he did to the Leviathan with Danny- to Danny, that was something else."

"You think it was Bobby who did that." Sam's sentence hung somewhere in the middle ground between a statement and a question, between doubt and incredulity. On one hand, the younger brother thought that Dean was wrong. On the other hand, he had no clue what to think.

Danny shook at how strangely perceptive his ability to read people, especially these two, had gotten. He tried to laugh it off as either a lifetime with Jazz or a weird tick from his powers, but neither felt right.

"I think Bobby shouldn't have been able to do that," Dean started slowly. "And I also think Bobby shouldn't have been able to come back again, even if only the kid can see him. But most of all, I think the kid couldn't have possibly done that on his own. You were driving when he woke up in the Impala afterwards, Sammy. You heard me need to tell him what happened. He… there was nothing there at all Sam, and then he started looking so scared. The kid had no clue."

Danny felt shame itch on the back of his neck as he recalled that at least half of that fear was of Dean, but the hunter didn't seem to know that.

Just as the moment of calm settled between the siblings a loud crash came from the upper floor.

"We can have another chick flick moment later," Dean said with a scoff. "Let's take care of fugly first."

Less than a second later he and Sam were bounding up the staircase after the noise, with the few heavy poundings betraying that the giants were taking the old wood stairs several steps at a time.

Danny looked up at the ceiling above him as he quietly paced his way through the kitchen. Regardless of the number of ghosts here, or how happy they were to have Nathaniel home, there wasn't any reason for something that could turn insubstantial to make a sound like that. Which meant that whatever malicious ghost had taken up resident decided to try to scare the humans who had been obviously settling in for a long chat downstairs out of the house.

But then Nathaniel's words came back to Danny and he remembered that the ghosts were all fully aware that the next visitors to their haunt would be hunters, even if they weren't familiar with the Winchesters themselves. For a ghost to be so illogical to make it obvious they were haunting the place in front of hunters who wouldn't be scared that easily, but at it same time it also wasn't so out of touch to immediately Rage as soon as trespassers entered the property. Danny couldn't think of a reasonable explanation based on his experiences, and that in itself was disturbing.

Danny had the sudden feeling that this might not be as simple as just talking down a ghost stubborn enough to ignore his hauntmates warnings for years.

Most worrying, either the intruding ghost was variable enough to need minutes to flicker into reality when disturbed but simultaneously carry substantial tangibility in the real world, or it wanted to lure Sam and Dean upstairs.

* * *

Danny waited until the footsteps were at least a room away on the upper floor before he turned the final corner from the kitchen into the main hallway and saw the stairs were clear. He was just about to start making a silent way up and testing how much weight he could balance on the first step without creaking when a blurry figure floated out of one of the rooms upstairs and made its way down towards him.

"Ah, young Daniel! I'm glad to see you're still here to help us out!" Danny urgently raised his finger to his lips to shush the ghost as it spoke in a conversational tone, desperately gesturing towards the upstairs where the Winchesters were clearly still investigating supernatural activity.

"Yes, sorry." Nathaniel stayed parked in the air above the teen and Danny internally sighed at how clueless the dead man was if he thought they could stay and have a chat in the open. Realizing going upstairs would be fruitless now that he found his guide, the psychic turned back towards the kitchen, before having a second thought and realizing the colonial family who clearly still acted as if they lived here in whatever age they were alive in would fuss less if they 'entertained a guest' in the living room.

Just as he was about to turn another figure materialized a foot in front of him. The slight tingle of energy and years of practice pretending to be normal quashed the instinct to jump, and the female ghost looked at him curiously.

"You were right, Nathaniel, he does appear to have instincts beyond merely the Sight." The spirit, clearly Nathaniel's wife and believing Danny had sensed her arrival to this plane, seemed pleased at the assessment and followed daintily behind. Danny bit in the instinctual response to point out that his 'sensing' her was entirely a coincidence.

The teen also noted her feet soundlessly touched the floor with each step she took, which only made it clearer that whatever was upstairs was an anomaly in the household.

"I apologize for the mess everything is right now, I've been worried sick the whole time dear Nathaniel's been away and haven't had the chance to clean. And I hope you don't mind the children," two small, translucent faces watched from the corner of the living room as they entered. "Normally I would have them play upstairs when we have guests over, but I fear leaving them alone in the company of either unwanted danger invading our house.

"Tea?" The ghost mother vanished and reappeared back by the living room entrance, and Danny could hear the rattling of porcelain in the kitchen as Nathaniel floated to get it. "Also, don't mind my husband, he normally can vanish as well but he's been feeling ill ever since he returned. I've never seen it before…"

"-It's ghost sickness." Danny cut in, glad that there was at least something he could say that may hopefully get the conversation serious and on track. He didn't want to be rude but it really wasn't the time for tea. "It's from not being in his haunt-" Danny realized tact might work better, "-the house for so long. Some time here and he'll recover.

"And really I'm good on the tea right now." Danny threw in as an afterthought, seeing the question build on her face. The rattling stopped and Nathaniel floated in.

"Oh, no trouble then. Thank you for the reassurance, Mr… now what is your last name Mr. Daniel?"

Danny flinched a bit at the name again and thought of how to avoid giving out his last name. It was a habit to avoid being identified as a Fenton, and if word about him was already spreading through Ghost Zone gossip here he didn't want to make it worse. "My first name's fine, and please call me Danny." He added with a grimace. Hearing someone, especially so formal, call him by his full name still sent tingles down his spine. Seeing her prim face frown made him scratch the back of his neck, only making the frown deeper.

Danny had never been grateful before for the sound of a destructive ghost attack upstairs. "And I really think I should be getting on to whatever trouble your new neighbor has been making upstairs. Your husband says he's been a problem ever since he moved in?"

"Yes!" The mother cried, and Danny couldn't help but notice the ghost children were shivering a bit in the corner. "He has no manners, or sociability, and is a makes a complete mess every time he-!"

Nathaniel put his intangible hand on his wife's shoulder to cut off her exasperated rant. "Darling, that isn't exactly what young Danny has come here to hear. Now that I can hold a conversation without fading out again I can finally tell you what I should have before you came. It started only a few weeks after tragedy struck the family that was living here, and all of us could feel the energy manifesting from the Ghost Zone the entire time in-between. You see, we had always been companionable but separate from the humans that lived in our house, until…"

* * *

Sam could hear the whine of the EMF meter growing louder with each step as he followed Dean upstairs. His brother pivoted at each door at the start of the hallway and heard its beeps grow stronger as he turned to the right, then the lights go straight off the charts as he turned to the left. With only a quick glance into the empty child's bedroom Dean first looked into, Sam followed his brother into the guest bedroom on the other side of the hall.

The room somehow seemed even darker and drearier than the rest of the house, with now noticeable amounts of dust caking the minimal furniture and floor minus an empty space by the window. While the rest of the house had a feeling that could possibly pass as a museum or place the Winchesters might break in to stay the night, this room screamed the haunted house the hunters were used to.

Dean slowly stepped forward towards the empty patch by the window, and stopped a few feet away to look outside. Sam followed dutifully behind to see the clear view of the front yard and the Impala parked thirty feet in the distance.

"So… master of the house decided to creepily watch into the distance as we pulled in. Don't you love it when the fuglies decide to play up the traditional monster movie roles?"

Sam smirked. "You miss that Dracula hunt, don't you?"

Dean turned his head and Sam saw in his eyes the joy that made hunting with his brother worth it. "You know I miss any hunt where we get to save the day and get the girl. Not only was she hot, she was a bartender! The chicks on this job suck."

"Still upset about the waitress?" The dinner they stopped for dinner had a wait staff well over seventy.

"All I'm saying is that there was a Hooters right next door!"

There was another crash a few feet away, but no visible signs of anything on the ghosts' part. Looking around the empty room, most possessions still in boxes, Sam couldn't find anything that stood out as being particularly tied to the haunt besides this empty patch of dust.

"So what do you think?" He turned to ask his older brother. "An entire family died here in the early 1800s, nothing for almost two centuries and then there was a suicide here about three years ago. The first family's burial records were lost in a town fire in 1937 and the most recent death had the body cremated. No remaining body parts, research didn't point out any possible mementos and I haven't seen anything while looking around that might be it. Should we start digging through the boxes here?"

Dean continued to circle the room, the EMF meter staying at a constant full blast but no other sign of the ghost permeating the air. The older Winchester looked over the piles of boxes and wiped the dust off the side of one. A shipping label was scotch taped to the side, any sign of the address smeared by a rough scribble of Sharpie marker.

Examining two other boxes revealed the same, the black lines on each more frantic than before. Scuffing the dust off the floor revealed that one stroke went so wild it stained the hardwood.

Dean stood and turned to his brother. "Nah, somehow I don't think we'll find it in here."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "This is clearly the center of the haunt. Come on, there might be a hair or a fingernail or something in this mess."

Dean shook his head. "Even if that's the case, doubt we'd find it before the spook gets angry again. Besides, you said suicide. Didn't want to be in this world when he died, doubt something that small would hold him on."

Dean sent him a cocky smirk, and Sam felt his face narrow. He hated when Dean did that during a serious situation. "Besides, let's get to the bottom of this. Why'd he suddenly off himself with his whole life packed up? It's a few years ago, bad economy, clearly living in parents' house." Dean gestured around to the room. "Wanted to get out and suddenly couldn't. Offing himself stops a ghost from coming back, but anger like that can lead to something else."

Sam's eyes widened as it came to him. Neither brother liked thinking about the last similar case they took. "You think we're dealing with a-"

Dean nodded. "Let's get started on the blessing bags, Don't really feel like sticking around here longer than we have to."

* * *

Hearing Nathaniel speak of the ghost he was dealing with didn't inspire confidence in Danny. The fact that they knew its background helped, but the sad angry boy who lived in this house for his whole life, not even something its original residents could claim, probably wouldn't take kindly to a stranger trying to evict him.

Danny reached into his backpack and pulled out the thermos and Fenton Peeler to have on him. Even though he hated walking into what could be a peaceful confrontation armed, it would be helpful to have defenses at the ready and neither device looked outright like a weapon.

Looking up at the confused faces of the ghosts sitting around the living room, Danny tried to muster what he hoped would be a confident smile.

"I think it's best if you wait downstairs or vanish for now. Nathaniel still needs to recover and there are hunters in the house."

"You're so young." The woman pointed out with a frown. "Will you be alright?"

Nathaniel moved his hand from his wife's shoulder to comfort her back through the chair. "You've seen his abilities, dear. He's the best chance we've got."

"Thanks." Danny fought the urge to rub his neck and felt even more uncomfortable. "And you know, I've gotta say I'm surprised you're all using acronyms and stuff. Thought you'd be more stuffy."

The ghost let back his head and laughed. "Just because we're dead doesn't mean we're frozen in time! We pick up all that newfangled slang the humans who live here use." Another bout of creaky footsteps started upstairs, making Danny realize the Winchesters had paused for a while.

The ghost noticed as well, and sent Danny a final nod. "Just don't forget what those hunters never seem to realize. Even though he no longer acts it, the young man up there was once human too."

Flashes of the times the Winchesters sobered after hunts suddenly flashed through Danny's mind. Sam's face after chasing stragglers from a pack of werewolves and the desperation in Dean's voice when he shifted between anger, confusion, and hope in describing Bobby's possession.

"Somehow," Danny found himself saying, "I think that deep down they know."

* * *

In just the twenty seconds it took for Danny to figure out the right pressure to put on the stairs to silently climb them the upstairs went from dead quiet to a battleground. He could hear shotgun shells being unloaded in the room on the left (hollow, with the multiple beats of impact betraying that it was rock salt rather than iron or silver) yet the teen also noted that the brothers must've split up and taken both sides of the upper floor when he heard a crash down the hall to the left and a grunt from the right.

Why the Winchesters couldn't be smart or make this easy, Danny sighed, before freezing as he realized one ghost shouldn't be able to put up a fight on two fronts.

Danny didn't want to go either way and risk meeting a Winchester, but standing like an idiot in the center and by the only exit clearly wouldn't work, so he needed to pick a side fast. More scuffling to the right and a haunting silence to the left made up his mind and Danny quickly darted into a dusty bedroom.

Wow, it was sad when it was just as much the unnaturalness stillness of the quiet that drew Danny as the potential lack of a murderous hunter.

The teen looked about the floor and squinted down at the clearly stolen motel towel laid out in the center of the room with a smattering of herbs, dusts, and other small objects. Investigating closer, Danny almost reached out until he noticed red flower petals and crossroad dirt and froze out of habit. He tilted his head before turning it quickly at the feeling of something materializing behind him.

"Why would those idjits be making hex bags now of all times?" Bobby Singer fiddled with his trucker hat as his eyes skillfully scanned over the ingredients laid out before them, clearly picking out more than Danny could.

"Bobby, what are you doing here?" More sounds of a fight beyond drew both of their attention, and Danny had to reach out to snag the ghosts' wrist before he could be drawn towards the Winchesters. "And I'd rather you not blow my cover after being the one to bust me over here."

Luckily the comment didn't make Bobby angry as he turned back. "I'm keeping an eye on you. There really isn't that much better to do in the afterlife you idjit, and if you haven't noticed at least one of us has gotta stick around to get your butt out of here when you're done." A second later and Wulf was standing on Danny's other side.

The psychic felt himself raising an eyebrow. "And you couldn't have just stayed visible or at least in my sight this whole time… why?"

"Figured you'd focus better having this be a solo thing. That and your friend's not really the most comforting figure to approach the ghost wife and kids, or whatever nonviolent approach you wanted to take."

Wulf was still hunched over in his old torn prison uniform and sniffing the spectral energy in the room.

"Point taken."

Watching the Esperanto speaking ghost veer around the hex bag workshop reminded Danny of what prompted his allies to materialize anyway. "So what exactly are they doing with all this?"

Bobby stared at it for a second before going still mid-float and letting out a curse. "Put those toys back in your bag and get the hell back out of here. Those boys clearly didn't do their homework and are just now figuring this out." He took off his cap to let his fingers trail through thinning hair. "Idjits."

Danny crossed his arms. "Isn't that exactly when I'm supposed to be helping them out?"

Bobby turned around and glared at him. "Yeah, when you're dealing with a ghost ya moron! Go in there trying to talk it down and you'll just get yourself killed!"

"Bobby, I'm not stupid. There's spectral energy all over here, Nathaniel said he felt the Zone manifesting in this room for weeks and I'm pretty sure I can tell when I'm standing less than twenty feet from a Raging ghost even with all of you here!"

"And there's more out there than just your typical ghost, boy! You're not just gonna run in there and try to suck up a pissed-off poltergeist!" Bobby's urgency travelled like a wave of energy that pushed against Danny's sixth sense, and the teen forced himself to breath and calm down before the danger pushed Bobby too far again. Another raging ghost in a nearby vicinity wasn't going to help, and Wulf growling dangerously at the unintelligible to him threat near his human friend reminded Danny that a fight between friends here and now wouldn't end well for anyone.

Luckily Danny didn't even need to talk Bobby down. Unluckily the distraction came in the form of a particularly loud crash from across the hall as the ghost- no, poltergeist - appeared to have grown even stronger with the extra malevolence.

Bounded footsteps creaked down the stairs less than a second after and Danny startled at the thought of the Winchesters separating again now of all times.

"Those hex bags that they've made should be able to banish any hold of ectoplasmic energy over the house," Bobby provided. "But in order for them to work they have to place four of them in the wall on each extreme of the house in the cardinal directions on each floor. Until that the poltergeist's just gonna keep getting angrier."

"What can we do?" Danny's posture set in a determined stance he subconsciously took whenever he felt heroic. The thought of him independently facing down the world and the Winchesters on his own reminded Bobby of that first night they met in the graveyard following the kid's grief.

Somehow he found himself stuck guiding teens who were all too good at acting the soldier.

"Checking on whichever idjit's getting himself tossed around up here's probably best. The poltergeist wouldn't be guarding this territory if the hex bag was placed and knowing Sam and Dean either of them'd be too focused on the poltergeist to see you if you're quiet."

Danny nodded quickly and darted into the shadows of the hallway before poking his head around the corner and carrying on. Somehow the human kid managed to make less noise than the ghosts as they faded out of the visible plane and followed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sudden break there, again this was not a planned chapter ending but it's about the midpoint of the chapter (about 400 words longer than the second half) and I rather have both Danny and the Winchesters' realization that they're dealing with a poltergeist than have those split across the break because I know some readers haven't seen both shows and wouldn't get the Winchesters' hints.
> 
> The only comment I'll make on the writing process here was that I actually hadn't initially planned the haunt to be a poltergeist when I came up with the idea for this storyline, in fact I think the twist may have come after I posted Chapter 5. I wanted to have Danny and the Winchesters on different sides of a hunt, but didn't want to vilify one side more than canon does, and while the original plot was closer to Danny trying to save a murderous ghost the Winchesters are after because it reminds him of Poindexter (from the first two chapters) I couldn't plan the outcome without knowing it'd come off as preachy on the winner's side. They'll be a couple more twists in part two that will hopefully keep the tone more balanced, because while I do want to write some future haunts where either Danny or the Winchesters are totally wrong and have to see the other's viewpoint (think ghosts like to some of the better Supernatural episodes and some of the scarier DP villains) this didn't feel like the right place for that in story progression. Let me know what you think, because I love hearing everyone's views on each franchise and character's moralities when it comes to ghost hunting.
> 
> See you next week for Chapter 7 (wow now all of my outlines for future chapters are misnumbered) and we'll see if I get more work done on Chapter 8 in the meantime. I have a full outline and about 3k actually written, so it probably just needs a good session or two whenever I can get in the Zone (pun intended). It will almost definitely be shorter than this one (in that I don't foresee needing to split it) but then again my estimate for this chapter was 5-6k and it was almost twice that.


	7. Betrayal at the House on the Hill (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two hunters, two ghosts, and a psychic walk (okay maybe one floated) into into a haunted house. It's not a joke, but features both punching and someone drawing a line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I'm back home and posting part 2! Thanks again to everyone who kept up with this story despite the long hiatus, and especially the people who went out of their way to leave reviews. It really helps to know that people still enjoy it and that (hopefully) the quality hasn't suffered from the break. Here's the second half of this story (third if you count the introduction to the characters before) and definitely the end of this little arc. The next chapter is partially written and features entirely new plot (with DP character(s) rather than OCs).
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

The sheer size of the tangled arms and legs sprawled across the floor keyed Danny that the upstairs Winchester was Sam before the teen saw his face or distinctive hair. The master bedroom was a barely contained mass of writhing ectoplasmic energy that pulsed through Danny's senses and stirred up the well-made sheets on the bed and any object not well tied down.

At least this wasn't in the other room, Danny thought numbly as he leaned back against the wall of the hallway by the door. All the dust in there could create a sandstorm.

Still, Danny couldn't help a large wince when Sam let out a soft groan and continued to lie still in the quickly calming tempest. The younger Winchester was at least badly enough hurt that he'd be feeling it for the rest of the week, if he wasn't completely down for the count. Looking the man over Danny couldn't see anything that looked like it'd require immediate first aid, but then again the high school student didn't really know enough to identify, let alone treat, human injuries that might come up.

Then the teen's eye caught on two small sacs on the floor, one clenched in Sam's hand and the other a few inches away. Realizing they must be the hex bags, and that they certainly weren't going to do anyone any good laying there, Danny darted forward and scooped the one on the floor up.

The psychic was about to test whether he could snatch the other without alerting the semi-conscious Winchester when Bobby appeared on the edge of his Sight behind Sam and shook his head gruffly. Getting the message that taking both would certainly blow his cover, Danny nodded quickly and darted out of the room.

The teen felt the familiar swirl of condensing ectoplasm build in the room as he left.

Danny tensed as a similar aura popped up next to him, before relaxing as he identified it as Bobby.

"So why do you think the ghos- _poltergeist_ left him alone while he was down?" Danny couldn't help but ask his mentor, "Will Sam be okay on his own?"

Bobby just grunted. "The kid's seen worse. He's starting to wake up already, and can handle himself. Your first priority should be taking care of that," The tipped his head in the direction of the hex bag in Danny's hand, "before the thing starts coming after _you_."

Danny looked down at the leather pouch in his hand. "So the poltergeist is just going after whoever's the biggest threat to his haunt…"

Bobby kept walking towards the other side of the upstairs and down the hall, and shot Danny a 'well come on idjit' look before the teen started to follow him. "I don't know everything about how poltergeists work, but from what I can understand from hunting 'em and almost becoming one they're basically ghosts raging so hard they become a different entity. While most ghosts have their own energy and a constant supply coming from their haunt a poltergeist just feeds and grows on it until they're damn well near inseparable.

"'s why the only way to truly kill the suckers is to purge the place with a mix of ghost repellents like you got there." Danny's hand shivered slightly at the reminder of what was inside the thin layer of fabric. "But it's also why they can be so nasty for a hunter, especially one going in blind thinking they're dealing with a simple ghost. Poltergeists don't have tangible forms anymore and can basically permeate their energy to affect the entire room. They can use it to throw objects and meatsacks around almost as well as any demon."

Danny nodded, his thoughts sobering at the mental comparison between the hunter's description of a being made of permeating energy to what he felt when Bobby possessed him. He filed it away for later backseat-Impala introspection at what could be behind one of his best friend's unusual powers. "So that explains why the spirit's able to put up a fight on multiple fronts, but I still don't get why he just left Sam alone when he was down. Maybe there's still something human left in him after all?"

Bobby let out a grunt, "I wouldn't get your hopes up kid. You may have good hunters in the boys looking out for you most of the time but if you're gonna be on your own -even sneaking around like this- you got to learn that there's a time and place for regrets and idealist optimism."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Isn't voicing regrets and idealist optimism the reason you made me tag along in the first place?"

The gruff ghost noticeably ignored that remark.

"What I know or don't know about poltergeists aside, I gotta say I've only seen weird stuff happen when one tries to take over an already occupied haunt." Danny couldn't quite catch the further comment Bobby made about how 'then again that could just be normal Winchester weirdness.' "Must be that none of those spirits like having other ghosts disturbing their turf, and having something getting in the way of that messes with the range of their powers."

Danny skid to a stop right outside the northernmost room as a plan came to mind, and a grin spread across his face. "Getting in the way, huh?" Danny turned his head to the seemingly empty air beyond him, though the psychic knew better than that now.

"Wulf, _mi havas planon_."

* * *

 

After a quick bilingual briefing and a silent countdown on Danny's hand the teen sprinted across the study towards the windowed wall facing dead north. Danny could feel the swirling of the poltergeist's _rage_ behind him, and then to the front and sides as the spirit coalesced all around to try to cut off the budding threat of another hex bag being placed.

With the energy growing stronger each second Danny simply gave in to the sensation and let his instincts take over, sixth (and maybe even seventh) senses piloting his perfectly timed swerves around pushes of energy that surely would have thrown him back on contact. Time seemed to slow down so that even though it felt to Danny like several painful minutes went by, in reality the teen was sprinting so fast he was almost flying.

As Danny noted a haze of the poltergeist's emotions leaking through into his thoughts and realized just how charged the room had become the teen had to wonder if he really was airborne.

About three feet from the wall, just one or two steps away from the target break in the wall plaster where some accident must've made the drywall weaker, Danny felt the poltergeist's strength gather for a blow from every direction and knew he wouldn't be able to dodge this one. Rather than diving or ducking to try to avoid the assault or gain traction on the floor, Danny pushed himself into the air and curled slightly, bracing for impact against the target wall as if he knew he wouldn't be blown off-course.

" _Nun Wulf_!"

In a blink Danny knew the ghost had appeared in the dead center of the room, claws bared and swiping at the air. The teen could feel the tear not by its usual increase of energy as the mortal world and Ghost Zone are shoved closer, but by the leak in the poltergeist's hold as its very essence in the study was punctured.

Next the friendly ghost teleported to a couple feet of Danny, leaving another small portal before darting away again, each time leaving portals large enough to disrupt the poltergeist's manifestation, but hopefully small enough to keep anything else from getting curious and crawling through. Within milliseconds the attack that had been building shivered, the ectoplasm torn between its owner's intention and natural diffusion aided by attraction to the Zone.

Just as both were about to push the less disturbed energy on Danny's other side through him towards the tear, Bobby materialized before the teen and grit his teeth as he took the brunt of the blow.

Danny could see as the hunter went from corporeal to barely visible in his Sight from the corner of his eye and cursed, even if part of him was happily shocked Bobby even withstood it that well. "That wasn't part of the plan!"

"Neither was you gawking rather than getting the job done, you idjit!" Danny ground his teeth and channeled his frustration into breaking a hole in the wall, missing the hiss and 'Balls!' Bobby let out as the aftershock of the poltergeist's blow set in. "I think I'm out for the fight at least, but I think I can still stick around to make you and the boys don't mess anything else up before getting this here done."

Wulf teleported back in the corner of Danny's vision again, growling something towards Bobby too quietly for the teen to translate but was likely something along the lines of the pot calling the kettle black.

Danny felt Bobby's presence fade back to an imagined itch, like when you're alone but know someone's watching, around the same time he felt a crack around his fist and noticed his latest blow punched a fair-sized hole in the wall. Fiddling in his jean pockets for the hex bag Danny felt the air try to manage one last heave to push the intruders out before going dead as the bag passed through the threshold of drywall.

The psychic let out what felt like the first clean breath since the fight started and turned to see the expected devastation, only to find the room looked perfectly untouched barring the pinhole portals into the Ghost Zone eerily floating like haunted fireflies.

"Is it done?" Danny said in what felt like a question but came out as a whisper compared to the crash that answered from the ground floor. The teen turned to Wulf, nodded and began to dart back to the study door when Bobby's form, barely visible in his Sight, suddenly leaned across the border.

"Sam's back up and watching Dean's back for any potential flying objects while he places the last two hex bags. Going down now and trying to help will just get in those boys' way and get your ass spotted."

"Wha… how do you know that?" Danny was a bit confused.

Bobby shrugged to Danny's question. "Doubt I'm in a state now to even be giving off much EMF. Not that they're focusing on that with the poltergeist moving its paranormal hissy fit downstairs."

"How will we know that they got the job done?" Danny asked, suddenly feeling testy as the adrenaline high wasn't quite ready to come down while others were still in trouble.

Bobby chuckled. "You'll know. Completing the ritual with those hex bags is like dropping a ghost bomb in the middle of the place. Purges everything right out."

A pause and a critical thought later Bobby added, "probably best to get going before that happens, not sure we'll be able to manifest here immediately after to take you home."

Danny felt ice go down his back. "What? But what about Nathaniel and his family?"

The hard look Bobby sent him made Danny think of everything that scared him in the Winchesters, and reminded him that Bobby was also a hunter well used to dismissing any casualties.

"No. Wulf's here to get me out of here before the Winchesters notice, right? And if you both are still here there must be time to get yourselves out. We can just go warn Nathaniel and everyone and take them with us."

Bobby scowled, "And give the poltergeist fair warning that a ferry to some other place he can haunt is departing momentarily? We didn't go through all this trouble ganking this thing just to let it get away right before the boys are done with it!"

"Then what about this? We've already been opening portals and are about to do a bigger one! Wasn't your plan already giving it a chance at getting away?"

Bobby was moving towards Danny in a way that would've been intimidating if the ghost didn't have such a weak hold on reality that the teen could barely tell he was there. "My plan, as you idjit damn well know, was getting you the hell away from here as soon as we know we're dealing with a poltergeist, and then keeping your sorry ass alive when you decide to run right to it! Now we gotta stop wasting time and get out of here before you get us all killed and then do something stupid to make the boys start comin' after you!"

Danny shot Bobby a defiant glare before he had to remind himself of the breathing exercises Jazz had taught him to help deal with bullies, not knowing Danny used them while dealing with ghosts to keep from accidentally fueling a rage. Once his fire cooled to ice Danny turned away from the mentor he sometimes had to ignore, "Then let's stop wasting time. Wulf, _ni iru akiri ilin._ "

Bobby couldn't do anything to stop them in his current state, even if he wanted to there wasn't enough energy to fuel even obsession with the building buzz of the hex bags. The Winchesters must be down to the last one, Danny thought absently, and shot out of senses to search for the ghosts while he walked.

"Don't you run your idjit ass off forgetting that ghost lost his head last time he left his haunt. They won't make it even if they get out of this place, not while they're too weak to even carve out a lair in the Zone."

Danny let out a bitter laugh. "I thought you knew that's why I actually agreed to do all this, Bobby! Not just to help you, but to try my hardest to save even those that Sam and Dean've lost hope in. I'm not going to start giving up now."

* * *

Finding the ghosts was actually pretty easy, given that they were hiding in one of the child bedrooms and Wulf easily caught the scent before Danny could see the wide translucent eyes peeking out from a barely cracked door. Convincing the family that their unwanted neighbor would be taken care of but that they needed to get out of there was also straightforward, as buzzing from the hex bags Danny started feeling earlier was steadily growing to a loud hum through his core with the taste of bleach and smell of ozone that backed up their story and spoke of a need for no questions until later.

Wulf's intimidating figure also lent a sense of urgency to the situation, or at least had the smaller ghosts hiding behind their mother's skirts.

Bobby's words from earlier scared Danny enough that he closed his eyes to push past the disinfectant like feeling permeating from the hex bags to try to sense out the poltergeist. Just in case it knew what they were doing and decided fleeing was a better option. The continued sounds of the fight below and the angry pressure emminating from below reassured the psychic and he opened his eyes with a nod to Wulf.

The ghost beast tore a larger tear straight to the Ghost Zone and ushered the family inside, Nathaniel taking the lead followed by the children and finally his wife, the Victorian ghost daintily staying as far from Wulf as possible as she stepped up to the gateway. She turned back to meet Danny's eye and the psychic didn't need any connection to read from the fear and gratitude in her gaze that she understood exactly what was about to happen to her home and the risk Danny made.

"Thank you, Mister Danny. You are so young, but still so courageous, kind, and alive. Don't lose that," and with a motion of her head that could've been to either Wulf or the house beyond she smiled, "and never stop sharing that with others. I wish you the best of luck."

"You too," Danny waved, and with a thrum of energy from below reminding them of the urgency the ghost took her leave and the portal closed like the end of a spell. All that was left in the room was Wulf, watching Danny with claws raised to take him back to the motel.

"I hope they make it okay." The teen couldn't help but mutter after them. Wulf opened his muzzle as if to say something but Danny found himself raising a hand.

" _Mi ne volas scii. Ni simple iri hejmen_ _."_

The last word may have been the most surprising part of the night. That somehow during the past few months, despite the circumstances, Danny had started to view this extended road trip as a home.

* * *

Two days of waiting around the small motel room built up a nervous energy in Danny that even visits from ghostly friends couldn't seem to quash. They tried to convince him they'd know if the Winchesters had any reason to suspect him, but the teen's imagination couldn't help but picture the men parked off the side of a highway somewhere loading their guns to barge in and gank him for colluding with ghosts and letting some go free.

Nathaniel and his family obviously wouldn't be able to visit regardless, but Danny was dreading bad news enough that he made it clear to Wulf and Bobby he rather not know if they survived relocating their haunt before it and all associated ectoplasm was purged. Jazz would probably have stern words about the psychological impacts of his decision, but Danny found himself enjoying imagining her voice scolding him for continuing to run away from his problems enough that he checked it off as a reason to stand by his choice.

So the sound of a motel key card at 8:30 Wednesday night, almost six days after the Winchesters left Danny to go on their ghost hunt was both a welcome relief and a worse spike of adrenaline than Mr. Lancer announcing a pop quiz. Danny tensed up in the desk chair and was overcome with the urge to act natural, before realizing he was just lounging about the room anyway.

He still started spinning in the chair probably faster than a teenager would be able to in order to burn off nervous energy.

Dean came in first carrying both men's duffle bags and set them down halfway between the door and the nearest bed while Sam followed his brother in. The taller Winchester had a slight drag to his step that could easily be passed off as car cramps or exhaustion, but Danny couldn't help but wince as he recognized the signs of lingering injuries from a fight he shouldn't even know about.

Sam leaned against the wall where he could easily take in both Danny and his brother, and the teen pretended to miss the way the wall was clearly taking more weight than usual. Danny found himself averting his eyes back to the desk when Sam closed his to take a breath, the teen not wanting to say something he shouldn't but panicking with the thought that his was probably even weirder not to say anything at all.

In the end it was Dean who broke the silence. Once he set the bags down (what felt like a solid minute to Danny from the perceived awkwardness was probably only a few seconds), the oldest turned and gave Danny a small salute.

"Hey, kid."

"H-hey." Danny replied, wincing at how tense that sounded. Brain racking over something he could say that sounded slightly conversational the teen led with, "So you've been gone a while…"

Dean visibly winced.

"Sorry about that. Something came up a bit further away than we thought."

Danny couldn't say anything in response but he knew that the Winchesters had been planning on going straight to this haunt when they left the motel. The psychic still didn't have even a general idea of where that haunted house was, but seeing as that whole adventure was almost at the perfect midpoint of his stay here Danny knew they purposefully left him hundreds of miles from their destination.

All the imaginings of what the Winchesters might have been thinking when they decided to make such a long trip left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"How've you been?" This was Sam, his eyes finally opening to look down at Danny's chair and shining with guilt. That expression eased Danny's mind: they weren't suspicious, they were worried. They'd locked him in a room for a week and hadn't thought of what he'd do with himself over that long a period.

Danny's mind unbiddenly jumped to Jazz's rants about their parents and he calmed down at the memory, his head falling into his lap at the thought of what his friends must think this long without contact.

"I'm good. Kinda wished I had brought my gaming console or something." Sam seemed to soften even more at the normalcy of the statement.

"We're just going to pack up in here a bit if you want to go run around outside or something. I can imagine you'd want some fresh air." The guilt was back.

Dean crossed his arms. "We already agreed we're staying the night."

"Danny shouldn't have to stay here any longer and you know we need to move on."

"We already have the room booked through Saturday and you need to sleep in a bed."

"It's not our money, I sleep in the Impala just fine, and that skinwalker's speeding up." Sam listed his arguments on his fingers as if he was still in pre-law. "Let's just head out."

Danny stopped partway to the door, unsure if he should keep going out or if he should pack up his things. Bobby and Wulf had shown up a couple times during his visit, the former grumbling something about bad habits picked up from fathers and the latter opening him a portal for a brief trip to avoid cabin fever so the automatic heading outside was partially just to keep up the act.

However, stargazing without the worry that the Winchesters might arrive to an empty motel room did sound appealing, so Danny ignored the brothers' bickering to head towards the door, figuring he could pack in under a minute if Dean won out.

But as he made his way across the room (almost subconsciously ducking underneath the lazer-like stares where the Winchester giants were still arguing about the merits of staying the night in the face of Danny's stay here and the next haunt) a thought popped into his head and quickly stuck. He tried to brush it off as too suspicious or off-putting, but really it was probably the most teenage thing Danny could do.

Which was how Danny found himself leaning in the doorway, trying to look up at the stars so as not to meet the Winchesters' gazes when he said, "You could just take me along on all your hunts, you know? It's not that subtle what you were doing. I know you probably still don't trust me or think I'm a little kid, but my parents are ghost hunters. I've been dragged along to that kind of thing before and I've handled a gun."

The room was silent enough he could hear Sam looking to his brother and Dean setting his weight on the bed. "It isn't like that, kid. These things are dangerous."

"You say you're not treating me like a kid but that's almost the only thing you call me." Danny huffed, trying to pretend the stars were just really pretty after a week indoors and he wasn't being stubborn.

"Danny-" Dean practically growled in annoyance, but most of it was clearly directed inwards.

"I'll stay by one of you guys or just stick to research or whatever, but this-" the teen finally swung around and gestured his arm to the room. "-isn't going to fly. I came with you because I wanted to and because Bobby asked but if you're going to just keep locking me away then I'm either going to leave or you'll just have to stop acting like you've kidnapped me and actually do it!"

The teen paused to breath at his words and leaned against the wall. _Nice going, Fenton,_ he thought, _always going too far and exploding like you're another raging ghost. That'll_ surely _help the Winchesters see your side._

But the scariest thing out of that outburst was that Danny couldn't even tell if he was bluffing. He was too worried about what could be happening now that he knew about the Winchesters and the monsters they fought to leave it alone. Sam and Tucker always joked that he was gaining an obsession of his own in wanting to help everyone, but maybe there was something more to that.

Saving people. That was the first line of the Winchester's creed and Danny just wanted to help them do it to a wider range of people than they were willing to acknowledge.

Not to mention the slowly growing part of him that would worry about the men themselves. He tried to write it off as just his friendship with Bobby and the way the ghost cared, but you can't spend over a month with two people and not appreciate them a little. Even if Danny disapproved of the means, he had spent too long with Sam and Dean to not know that they were trying with all their hearts and that their methods were at least superficially effective.

Danny thought he heard one or both of the people he was thinking about call his name, but the psychic really didn't want to deal with it. Walking outside the motel room he ironically noted that maybe he did need some fresh air after all.

* * *

Sam watched the teenager as he stalked outside, leaving the door hanging wide open either in his forgetfulness or as a mocking gesture that the Winchesters would want to be able to keep watching him.

"Dean, what-" Sam barely started before his brother cut him off, elbows on his knees and fingers running through his hair.

"I don't even know Sam."

The comparison to Dad and their own childhoods were oppressing and went unspoken as soon as they made eye contact. It wasn't exactly the same, but somehow that only made it feel worse rather than better.

"The kid..." Dean stopped, a grimace coming back at the habit after the teen's words, "Danny shouldn't be off on his own, we both know that. Between whatever's going on with those ghosts and anyone who might decide to come after him for being close to us we can't just leave him to fend for himself."

"You still think there's something bigger going on with him." Sam held out his hands in front of him and just stared at them, still remembering the feeling of demon blood, getting tricked and played by Ruby and Yellow-Eyes, and Dad's stinging final words by proxy. He knew what it was like to be coddled over fear of something bigger.

But he also knew the horror of that fear coming true. "I'm not sure that's a reason to keep him locked up. Danny has a point in that he should at least know how to fight."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "I honestly thought you'd be on the other side of this one." It was rare that they still surprised each other after so long.

"I am." Sam groaned and ran his hand against his face. "We should drive him right back to Amity and let him be a normal kid."

"He's been talking to ghosts for over a year before we met him. Think he left normal life behind a long time ago."

_I was having psychic dreams and still wanted to be normal. Tried to be normal._ Sam wanted to say. Instead he settled with "He deserves better." A pause, then finally the other thought came pouring out. Sam was never good at holding himself back with family. "Dean, we deserved better."

"I know." Dean muttered, and Sam couldn't tell which, or both, his brother was responding to.

Dean looked up. "So let's just do what we can. Teach Danny to fight, keep him close and watch his back. If something's coming after him or trying to use him we'll have to stop it. But if it's him and he's another Ruby… you know the whole 'keep your enemies closer. We'll just have to keep watching each other's backs like always."

Sam nodded. Then he stood up as a thought came to him.

"About that, I forgot to say anything, but thanks for picking up my slack back there."

Dean looked puzzled. "Anytime, but you're the one who kept going when hurt. I didn't do anything special."

Sam sat down in the chair so he could see out the door. "I meant taking care of that extra hex bag upstairs and doing the downstairs too."

Dean froze. "I didn't place any hex bags upstairs." The implications of what that could mean chilled both brothers.

"Well, the blinding white light when the last one was placed certainly means we didn't mess anything up…" Sam trailed. "But I don't think I remember placing four."

Dean's big brother mode, already active from worrying about Danny, went into overdrive. He walked over and crouched in front of his little brother, placing his hand on Sam's forehead as if he was still feverish three days later. "Dammit Sammy you didn't tell me you lost time."

"I didn't think I did. I just remember having placed the second one when the poltergeist got me but then I only had one left."

That didn't comfort Dean, who swore under his breath.

"It's fine, Dean. We took care of the poltergeist and I'm feeling better." Sam started pushing his brother away, if only because he felt flustered under all the mothering.

Dean pursed his lips but didn't fight it. "We're definitely staying the night now. We can head out in the morning but you're getting some sleep here and then some more in the Impala."

Sam fought down a sarcastic response, reminding himself he was an adult now, and shouldn't act like the little kid Sammy Dean treated him like. The thought has his eyes drifting past his brother to the still open door, where Danny was finished running around laughing at either thin air or maybe even something only he could see. The teen then stopped where he was and stole a glance at the motel room, his eyes screaming of a teenager about to do something they know they shouldn't, and when he was satisfied with Dean's back facing him Danny carefully climbed on the hood of the Impala and laid back, his sky blue eyes widening as he took in the stars.

The nostalgia almost made Sam smile, before he realized he should probably help keep Danny's harmless relaxing safe from Dean's over-protectiveness around the Impala. He met his brother's eyes and was glad to see that he was still honed in on Sam's condition, so the younger brother made a face as if he was just relenting and let out a sigh.

"Yeah, a night to rest is probably best for everyone."

With their lives, who knows when the next one would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And scene! This last little bit was an unexpected result of some comments on AO3 when a reader was confused about where Danny fit into this in DP and the Winchesters' reaction to him, so I figured I'd show some of their POV. It wound up being probably my favorite scene across both parts, and has definitely inspired another fluffier Chapter (probably Chapter 9 since next one's partially written).
> 
> Hopefully next chapter will be done and up in a week or two. I have an unrelated Superphantom one-shot I'm planning on posting within the next week, so there'll be at least something coming from me soon, and hopefully the next chapter will be finished in time I can keep consistently writing. Really don't want to disappear again but never know when life/writers' block will strike.
> 
> Translations from Esperanto for when Danny speaks to Wulf (I just used Google Translate so sorry if there are mistakes to anyone who's fluent):  
> Wulf, I have a plan.  
> Now Wulf!  
> Wulf, let's just go get them. (referring to the ghost civilians)  
> I don't want to know. Let's just go home. (Danny's shocked that he calls the motel room, and this life by extension, home. Partially inspired by my really bad habit of calling anywhere I'm staying home if I'm out and about. I've done this with friends' houses at sleepovers and they're always really confused.)


	8. Vlad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters landed themselves and Danny in jail. While this may not be Jus in Bello, it may take a deal with the devil to get everyone out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Hope the wait this time wasn't too bad! I will point out (if you haven't yet noticed) that this chapter also falls in the category of "way longer than I originally intended" but since that's apparently a trend now and there was no good place to split this you just get an extra long installment. I was always super jealous of authors who wrote 9k+ word chapters so this is actually kinda fun.
> 
> I will give a bit of a preface here that this chapter introduces one aspect of what is by far the biggest difference from canon in this verse, which is the DP character's backgrounds. I'm not saying they're not going to have the same characters or have completely new histories, but going off of the fundamental change that Danny stands out as a psychic rather than a superhero means that Vlad did the same, and his entire history went very differently due to that with some ripple effects. I'll give a play-by-play on the new backstory at the end of the chapter, but most of my world building there should be built into the story. I'm actually pretty pleased with how this installment came out in both that and in dialogue (two things I often worry about) so I hope this is a fun read for both verse and story. As always let me know your thoughts, and definitely speak up if you think the changes made Vlad or Danny feel mischaracterized. I hate when small change AUs are used as an excuse for OOC, and I'm definitely trying to keep everyone in canon characterization, so it's definitely important to hear if that's something I could do better.
> 
> I wanted to also take a moment to address some confusion I've seen about Danny's ghost powers. Again, I really want to have it ambivalent about how unnatural Danny is, both because it gives more room for all of the characters and the audience to play with (especially in relating to the Winchesters) but also because of the impact on Danny himself. In this verse Danny needs to work with and rely on other ghosts: that's the crux of how he and Bobby became friends, how he wound up traveling with Sam and Dean, and the nagging fear he's trying to avoid that all ghosts really are evil and he's slowly being corrupted by listening to them (which I hope to come more as both sides start to really consider each others' views). I'm not saying Danny will never fling around ectoblasts or wield the Fenton thermos or intangibly sneak in/out of locked rooms (because he's already done all three), just that Danny won't turn into Phantom and fly off to have a pun-off with a ghost behind the Winchesters' turned backs because that would go against a lot of what this verse has to offer. I love those superphantom fics, but that won't go in this collection.
> 
> If you still have some trouble envisioning exactly where Danny's at power-wise, a book I read last month that comes pretty close to my vision is Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (it's inspired by The Jungle Book but instead is a supernatural fantasy about a boy raised in a graveyard. It's a really fun read). Both the episodic chapters and the focus on world-building rather than plot reminded me a lot of this fic. In it, the main character Bod is given Freedom of the Graveyard, and while there can Fade from humans, walk through locked gates, and haunt bullies, but whenever trouble comes he strategies and relies on the ghosts' stronger powers to help him. I'm not saying Danny has the same abilities as Bod (he may have more, may have less, may have whatever he has grow like in canon...) but it stuck out as a really good comparison if anyone's happened to have read it.
> 
> This chapter was a long time coming and a lot of fun to write. I actually wrote the first third before I had more than 100 words finished of either part of last chapter, then had to make myself hold off and slowly build while I finished the earlier arc. Sadly I don't have any of next chapter pre-written, but I have 3-4 fully-formed ideas and I know which one will come next, so I just need to get started. I'd like to wager it'll be shorter, but honestly just about everything I've written this year has been more than twice my predicted length, so all bets are off. I can guarantee it'll be rather fluffy, because these boys are due for a break (and to actually be in the same place as each other for a chapter).
> 
> Sorry for the really long note and that there'll another reasonably sized-one at the end, but I hope whoever's bugged by long ANs realize that I see them more as an optional place to put my general thoughts on the fic and update schedule, and I'm not at all offended if you skip! Enjoy!

Danny always knew when he started travelling with the Winchesters that he'd likely wind up in jail sooner or later.

He should've figured that it'd turn out to be sooner.

Still, the teenager couldn't help but grumble at his stupidity as he paced the empty cell he was placed in. They had been staying in a run-down motel outside of drive-through city in Iowa when the Feds ambushed them their second night there. It had been a normal hunt chasing a vampire nest but it turns out that one of the local cops had transferred a few years back from a station in Colorado the Winchesters had once blown up running from murder charges. While the cop hadn't worked there at the time, he held enough of a grudge to remember the brothers' faces and recognize them anywhere, despite them having apparently faked their own deaths during the incident.

Danny couldn't help but collapse on the hard bed and rub his face in his hands over how messed up his life was.

He knew that the Winchesters must have their own side to that story, even with a headline as crazy as that the teen knew that it had to have been some unusual hunt gone wrong to cause so much property damage. Or at least he hoped that he wasn't wrong in guessing that the Winchesters were not actually crazy pyromaniac murderers behind the legitimate supernatural insanity they hunted on a regular basis. But just because _he_ \- the teenage psychic who's been trying (so far with little success) to convince the Winchesters to take a more pacifistic approach to hunting - didn't believe that the two serial murderers he lived with were bad people didn't mean that it was smart to be travelling with them.

Danny just blamed his terrible forward-thinking skills and lack of book-smarts that he hadn't even considered consequences to his choice of roommates beyond being killed in his sleep by vengeful ghosts, demons, other supernatural creatures, or the Winchesters themselves.

So now the teen was left to twiddle his thumbs in a separate cell (mandated by law because he was a juvenile, but given the sympathy and cooing of the receptionist at the station was also largely because everyone thought he was a Stockholm Syndrome inflicted victim of the Winchesters latest foray into committing every crime in the books) as the police tried to make out whether he was indeed an active participant in any potential felonies. Danny was pretty sure he also heard at least one cop tell him that they were trying to find ID and a way to contact his parents, but that it might take a while. All of the local cops eager to find if the no-longer-missing kid was local had their hands full in juggling the feds, trying to secure both the Winchesters and a minor they were unsure if needed security or to be secured, and locking down the facility just in case the felons try to pull something like Colorado again.

Danny had no clue how to respond to that. He knew his family and friends must be confused and scared by his sudden disappearance, and part of him regrets not telling them in the tunnel vision brought on by Sidney's murders and subsequent death, but he always figured he could wait until he was almost ready to go home before imagining an excuse that could make it plausibly sound like he just ran away. He never thought he would tell the parents the truth about where he went just like he could never tell them why, and now he wasn't sure what he was going to say when they saw him in a jail cell.

The agents didn't know how to talk to him either, and Danny was stunned silent by the indecision of whether to admit he ran away or pretend that Sam and Dean kidnapped him from Amity Park and dragged him all this way. He couldn't definitively say if Sam or Dean would mind. Leaning back in an attempt to make himself comfortable and accidentally banging his head against the concrete wall, Danny realized he also didn't know enough about criminology beyond cop shows to guess at whether anyone would believe him if he actively claimed to be a victim.

He couldn't see anyone in his cell block, and knew that the Winchesters were in the more comfortable interrogation rooms, mainly so that the multitude of local and federal agents running around could keep an even closer eye on them, and that left Danny the blessing that no one had the time to be pushy enough to keep trying to ask him questions after he immediately clammed up.

What the teen didn't know was how long he had been waiting, how long he would keep on waiting, and how many times over his mom and Jazz would kill him when they were finally called to get him out of this mess.

There was also the possibility of getting stuck in jail. But given that he was still legally a minor, and therefore offered some protections, (as the loud receptionist took care to inform him and everyone else when he was booked, promising as she worked that the records were just a precaution and wouldn't be made public unless charges were brought), not to mention the already-suspected Stockholm Syndrome defense, he wasn't too worried. It also helped that he had a friend who could rip open localized gateways to literally anywhere in the world and at least a dozen other acquaintances owing him favors who could simply phase him out of jail, so relatively Danny wasn't as concerned about the imprisonment part as a kid probably should be.

If anything he was more worried about becoming as much of a fugitive as the Winchesters. While he didn't mind living this kind of life for the sake of one of his best friends and the betterment of supernatural life on the North American continent, the Winchesters weren't really the type of people Danny would pick out at a Casper High career fair as role models of good living.

Danny really didn't want to sit here and think about how they were the only other people besides his parents who served as realistic examples of living with the knowledge that ghosts are real without shunning it out of everyday life.

(Un)Luckily his time alone musing was interrupted by one of the local police officers, Sheriff Blubs according to his nametag and badge, walking into the hall of holding cells. Being the only person currently in sight (it seemed all the other routine prisoners were cleared out or let go to make room and lock the place down for the Winchesters), Danny had to deal with the knowledge that whether for better or for worse this was for him.

"Your attorney showed up with someone to see you." The sheriff said bluntly as he unlocked the door to Danny's cell. Apparently he was still in the undecided camp about whether Danny was an accomplice to two of FBI's Most Wanted or a kid who went through unspeakable things. This left the sheriff not quite knowing how to address him, choosing to keep things as short as possible and watch him without making eye contact.

"My attorney?" Danny gaped as he was led down the hall by the sheriff. "But I didn't ask for an attorney."

Danny felt a roll of pressure on his shoulders that he associated with the arms leading him giving a shrug. "He's your attorney, kid. Called the station for your phone call saying he was on his way."

"I thought _I_ was supposed to get to make the phone call?"

The sheriff let out a small sigh towards the federal agents milling in the hallway, clearly as uncomfortable with his station being taken over as Danny was with his legal situation. "You can have one later if you still need it. We're kind of busy and were dealing with a lot of administrative things regarding the recent arrests and trying to keep things quiet for security so when he called demanding your legal rights we had to take it. Gave us his credentials, some of your personal information to prove he knew you, an alibi for most of the Winchesters' known crimes to hold off your arrest, and agreed to allow for police presence until you've agreed that you do in fact know the man before leaving you in his company. Man was persistent, but not much we could do with you having no ID and him not cutting any corners." They stopped to have Sheriff Blubs unlock the door to a spare interrogation room and the man had a sudden look of self-scolding cross his face as it dawned on him that he had been speaking with potentially a dangerous criminal for almost the entire walk.

The first thing to hit Danny when the door opened was the familiar, almost-aristocratic voice continuing the conversation he had been having on the other side of the door as if that wasn't a blatant sign that the man was eavesdropping on the police officer. "Of course he didn't cut any corners. Only the best for my Little Badger."

Danny was immediately sorely tempted to book it in the other direction. Criminal record and being stuck running on the lam for the rest of his life be damned, the teen _really_ didn't want to sit down across from the man sitting next to a fancy attorney in the makeshift interrogation room.

" _Vlad_."

The man simply made a polite smile. "Hello Daniel. I would ask whether or not things have been well with you, but seeing that I needed to take one of my private helicopters and best attorneys out of state to a small-town police station caught up in one of the largest federal murder investigations this decade in order to see you, we both know that they haven't." Vlad turned his head slightly towards Sheriff Blubs standing in the doorway and said, "Now as you can see Daniel and I are clearly well-acquainted, and I assure you that as soon as you have the ample manpower to find out _whatever could possibly be behind_ this mysterious shutoffof the phone and cell systems here to call his parents they will further verify that I am indeed his godfather. Now, will you please excuse us? Young Daniel is a minor and has the right to privacy with his guardian and attorney."

Danny stood his ground by the entrance and blurted out, "You're not my guardian."

Seeing the sheriff's hesitation Vlad made eye contact with the teen and said, "Not permanently, no, but seeing that your parents are currently out of the country for a sudden Canadian ghost symposium and given the extreme severity of this situation I think you'll agree, as your attorney has very diligently lined out on overtime in this emergency, that you need to be represented fully as soon as possible in order to be safely removed from a harmful situation before any of the multitude of agents here start wrongly trying to accuse you of being more than a traumatized victim." A self-satisfied smile broke across Vlad's face as he included "Which of course involves granting your loving Godfather temporary guardianship so that we can take you home as soon as we're done with this little debacle here."

Danny glared at the man and was about to open his mouth for a sassy retort when Vlad suddenly broke eye contact with him to look at a man in a suit seated next to Vlad where a cop would normally be seated at the interrogation table. The suited man, who Danny mentally smacked himself upon piecing together must be 'his' attorney, cleared his throat and looked at Sheriff Blubs.

"Now, unless you would like to put this whole investigation in danger by denying Mr. Fenton and his guardian a privileged conversation with their attorney…?" The attorney tilted his head slightly as to remind the Sheriff of the weight of the investigation going underway just down the hall against the Winchesters, and Danny could practically feel Blubs' blood run cold through the hands on his shoulders at the implied threat of forcing two men on the FBI's Most Wanted list off on a technicality, and on the sheriff's head. Blubs quickly led Danny over to the chair across from 'his attorney' and Vlad and practically ran as he stumbled from the room.

A second after the door clicked shut Vlad leaned forward in his seat, a nearly gleeful smirk crossing his face as loomed far too close to Danny for comfort. Granted, a personal bubble for Danny from Vlad included anything within a five-mile radius.

"Ah, my dear Daniel. Despite the most… unpleasant circumstances behind this situation I must admit it soothes me to finally see you again. I have been quite worried since I heard you disappeared without a trace and it's pained me to see Maddie so heartbroken without being able to give her news on your location despite my most… thorough investigations."

Danny bristled at the all-too-familiarly creepy way Vlad always seemed to hone in on him and his mom and couldn't help but spit, "What do you want, Vlad?"

Vlad somehow managed to lean even closer without falling out of his chair, a thought that had Danny almost snorting at the mental image. "What I want…" the billionaire suddenly paused from where he was invading Danny's personal space to sit back up at full height in his chair and nod towards the attorney. The suited man's face gave nothing away as he pulled out the leather briefcase resting to the side of his chair and opened it to reveal expensive looking noise-canceling headphones, which the man put over his ears before diligently turning away from the table and its occupants, looking as if he was all too familiar with this level of privacy and deniability.

"What I want," Vlad continued, "is for you to give up this silly hero charade and come to my side as you were always meant to be."

"It's not a charade." Danny growled, barely keeping up with the rest of the infuriating lies Vlad was spitting as his anger burned like Rage within him. Just like old times.

That only made the billionaire lean back, a smirk gracing his features like a chess fan finally setting up the board against their favorite match, "Ah yes, of course, how silly of me. Any decent attempt at acting the hero would never land you in jail in league with America's most notorious serial killers."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"And that's exactly what I mean Little Badger. You are throwing your life away running after impossibly idealistic goals and naïve personal judgements without realizing that there are more ambitious and meaningful ways you could be spending your life, not to mention your _abilities_. Even if you're still oh-so-determined to doing 'good.'

"Stubbornly clinging to a normal life and a _largely infuriating family_ in Amity Park I can understand, but now I discover that you are chasing some of the most dangerous and immoral men while _still spouting_ that do-goody nature and _rejecting_ the opportunities I can provide you! If I was not quite as patient a man as I am I would be infuriated at how _hypocritically you continue to defy me_." No one but Danny was looking to see the man's unnaturally glowing red eyes in his fury, but then again Danny didn't know if anyone else but him could even detect the manifestation of ghostly sight in them as their owner nearly Raged.

Danny knew that Vlad had seen the complimentary color in his own gaze in earlier confrontations back in Amity and that while he was fully capable of going tete-a-tete with Vlad he never won, but although the look and threat should have inspired fear in the boy it only fueled more frustration at the entire situation.

"Oh, _I'm_ the hypocrite? I'm the one actually going out there using my abilities to do some good in the world, saving living people and helping ghosts find peace while protecting my friends. You rather just steal money from a cozy office while ignoring all the haunts going on in Amity Park and all over the country! I'm the one who actually takes time to listen and understand the ghosts so I can help them rather than just tell them what to do and only think of how it can benefit me! So I'm not going to go be your evil apprentice locked up in some DALV office building so you can check another item off your creepy bucket list when I can be out in the world helping people. Even if that means I have to get my own way out of this."

Danny could see Vlad roll his eyes and felt the electric green finally materialize in his own. "Don't underestimate me and think I need your help here. You aren't the only one who's made alliances with ghosts, Vlad."

Vlad Masters paused, and his face swept from the expected look of surprise at the explosion to a smug Cheshire smirk. "Oh, my dear Daniel, you grow up to be more like your true family every day. That therapeutic instinct towards ghosts from your sister Jasmine, that all too kind and forgiving heart from lovely Maddie, all covering up that stone cold determination that dare I say reminds me of myself."

"Don't you dare…" Danny growled.

"Tsk tsk," Vlad sighed and swept out his arm in that condescending and snobby way that made Danny think that this fruit loop _really_ needed a cat, "I just said that I do."

The billionaire paused and pushed himself back in his chair. "But despite these changes in the past couple of months you still seem to have maintained the same level of stubbornness and ignorance. There is nothing out there as black and white as good and evil. To continue to believe otherwise, given where you are now, is simply childish." Vlad sent a pointed look and a gesture to the wall on the right, where somewhere on the other side of the concrete one or both Winchester brothers were being interrogated for a slew of crimes and murders.

Danny had to pause and remember the situation, that this wasn't just yet another fight with Vlad dancing behind the ignorant eyes of his parents, to fully take in the signal. "You knew about the Winchesters…"

"Of course I do Little Badger. I am one of the most powerful businessmen in the country and I pride myself on my vast multitude of _connections_. I make it a point to know almost everything and have for quite some time."

"I thought you said you couldn't find me..."

Vlad tilted his head at the remembered detail, with what could be either mockery or pride. "I said I did not have your location. If I did I most certainly would have already come and picked you up from this terrible mistake before you nearly irreparably tarnished your reputation with a felony charge. I've had a vague idea of where you were and whispers of what you've been doing nearly this entire time."

Vlad's face froze as he paused to consider his words. "Also, I must admit, you have done a remarkable job in inspiring a surprising amount of loyalty in your allies. However, allowing yourself to be possessed or put in harm's way in order to do so is complete unacceptable, my dear boy. You are alive. Your ghost allies are not."

Danny pressed forward, "If you've heard about what happens out there then you have to have seen it, Vlad! How can you say it's… how can you say that some of the stuff that's out there doesn't classify as evil?"

Vlad let out a cold laugh, and Danny somehow felt like he'd been beat again at one of the games of chess the man often coerced Maddie into watching them play, saying it was a useful skill to learn and it would allow for Godson-Godfather bonding time. "Oh, but Daniel, I thought you were the one tagging along with the Winchesters to make them see the good in all of the supernatural things out there! You can't possibly be telling me that you were wrong about your entire reasoning behind this little foray and maybe the entire adventure too?" He stilled his mocking laughter and reached a hand out towards Danny, making the teenager want to shy away even more.

"There are some dark things out there Daniel, and some are at times even reason for us to be afraid. But even there I do not see good and evil. They are creatures, each with their own sets of morality, goals, and emotions to guide them. Sometimes those may even go so far as to be classifiable as _corrupted_ " he let his eyes flash red with a controlled spike of Rage before dismissing it, "but attempting to shoehorn any of those categories into the subjective ideals of your personal morality like good and evil or even by human emotions like cruelty or sincerity is naïve.

"Any attempt I've seen to define an acceptable range to some or all of the above has only settled on a dividing line based around what is _human_. And we both know the consequences those divides have on the hapless ones stuck in the middle."

Vlad took that moment to stand and walk around Danny while he was still deep in thought, leaning over his shoulder. "There is no such thing as good and evil, my dear boy. And if there is possibly any evil out there lurking under beds like another supernatural legend, I assure you that we aren't it."

"I'm not-" Danny's voice caught as he tried to think his words over in his head. The teen didn't know why he always tried so hard to push back against Vlad, but he couldn't help but think of how different things would be if he could just convince the other man like him to see things his way, and what _good_ he could be doing. "I'm not talking about it like that…"

Finally, the teen found what he needed to continue, and just let his words fall out. "I'm not saying that there are things that are evil just because they're inhuman, or even just because they're killing humans. I know that's not always the case, and I know it's better to try to listen and understand each situation as it occurs, mostly because I don't want to fall into that trap of classifying creatures you accuse me of.

"But while I may agree that there might not be such a thing as evil, can't you see that some of what we're doing is clearly good? We've saved people's _lives_ , Vlad! And I've already managed a couple of times to help them do that without as many casualties, and knowing I can make a difference like that just…" Danny trailed off as he combed his hands through his hair, realizing first that he didn't know how to end the sentence before catching up with what he said and stealing a glance up at the man across from him. Great, now he went and got all emotional in front of his nemesis…

But Vlad didn't have that creepy checkmate face on, or even the mocking sneer before he ripped into him. If anything, the billionaire was leaning further away and taking in Danny with a look even the psychic couldn't place. Happiness… or maybe pride?

"Daniel…" The man sighed, before leaning in and pinching the bridge of his nose. "You have such a profound view of the world, and yet you still believe in fairytales."

"I don't-!" But Vlad cut Danny off with a wave of his hand.

"I know, you only believe in the good ones. That doesn't make any you less naïve _at all_." The dripping sarcasm was back, and the condescending sneer shortly followed with it.

"You want to be some knight in shining armor, my Little Badger, but let me provide you a small history lesson you must've slept through, or just missed because you dropped out of high school, if you've bothered to consider that. Those knights you envision pillaged as much as they protected. I'm sure in the end they killed far more than they saved.

"And while I know it must not seem as glamorous or appealing to a young boy like yourself, do not dismiss the work I have done and the impact it's made on the world," Vlad said. "Do you know how many lives DALV Medical's latest cancer vaccine has saved? 592. And that's just in the first round of clinical trials."

"Yeah," Danny rolled his eyes. "And how many families are going to go bankrupt paying for the latest Packer's shrine in your mansion after you stole that tech from some ghost, Vlad?"

Said Packer's-shrine-owning billionaire let out what anyone but Danny would have tactfully avoided calling a huff. "When are you going to realize, my dear boy, that I cannot just underwrite all of my savings from having half an R&D department made up of ghosts on the final product or monitored charitable donations without looking suspicious? You may not approve of my money or my methods, but when the dead come to me asking for retribution against spies, thieves and murderers who wanted to silence them and their ideas, or for a little more time to bring their magnus opus to light I do not refuse. Even if you disapprove of the quid pro quo I ask in return, I am merely enabling myself to better assist those who come to me in the future."

"It isn't helping people if you're just turning around and charging them for it." Danny muttered under his breath. Vlad didn't even need to hear the boy's words to know the argument: they really have done this too many times before.

Instead this time the billionaire simply raised an eyebrow. "Pot meet kettle. Unless you want to tell me that your first alternative when you tried to turn me down earlier wasn't going to be to call up Wulf or Singer for assistance."

Danny shot him a look close enough to a pout that Vlad forced himself to keep from teasing him further. There was no point in needlessly upsetting the child. "Which brings me to the fact that you haven't even bothered to hear me out, Little Badger."

"I don't want your charity, Vlad."

Vlad's grin got even more smug. "I thought we just agreed any help from me would come with appropriate quid pro quo?"

"Somehow I like the sound of that even less." Danny crossed his arms.

Vlad just shook his head and tsked. "It's bad business to brush off potential negotiations without at least hearing an offer, Daniel." He scolded in an almost sing-song tone, as if Danny was the young child Vlad sometimes let run around the mansion and he got caught stacking chairs to reach the cookie jar again.

"I think I've made it clear I don't want anything to do with you. I'm not really sure what part of that is up for 'potential negotiations.'" Vlad wanted to give the boy the evil eyes for making air quotations at the final part, but was able to hold himself back.

Still the man forced out a sigh. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm never going to ask more of you than what is needed to better enable us to use our powers?"

"As many times as I have to remind you that there is never going to be an _us_!" The boy paused before smacking his forehead. "And that always comes out wrong!"

"You still remain the only human I have met who carries a fraction of the powers I have built my empire on. Trust me when I say I have investigated psychics and all other options and though I have my theories, there is no concrete connection I can use to mold another ideal protégé. Even if I were not your Godfather, that commonality alone would be enough for me to want to look after you and teach you all I know."

Danny hated when Vlad explained his thought process and acted so creepily human with him. Although his senses were more finely tuned to sensing and emulating emotions from ghosts, it was easy to fall in the pattern of mirroring whatever the other party felt. It was almost as dangerous a liability when Vlad broke up that anger and was almost kind as when a ghost exploded into a Rage right in front of him.

"That really doesn't do anything to change the fact that you're still a selfish creep and a fruit loop. And I don't need or want your help because I can handle things _on my own_."

Vlad's eyes narrowed. "Your ghost allies and the Winchesters must be bad influences. You were better behaved when you were younger. Much politer and less arrogant, and almost happy when Uncle Vlad came to visit if I must admit."

Danny's finally felt that anger return and his eyes flashed green at that jab.

"Very well," the billionaire sighed dramatically, "I can see when I'm not wanted anymore. Big boy Daniel here is going to get out of this one all on his own, without anyone else's help." Vlad stood from the desk and started slowly to make his way out, but from his avoidance of the attorney (still turned away from them in the corner with noise-cancelling headphones, likely oblivious to everything happening), Danny guessed that this was just another of the man's over-dramatic bluffs.

The teen rolled his eyes and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"I guess I'll just install my portable ghost shield around the station before I go. After all, the Winchesters are confirmed to be supernaturally inclined nutjobs and my Godson's already been too infected by their rhetoric to speak to me or let me help him, so I can't do anything more than this to keep him safe. Give him a bit of confidence that his family will still speak with him should he change his mind and make sure that no fearsome spooks or outside help phase or rip their way inside to kidnap him, or dare I say, help him escape." The billionaire was practically swooning his hand across his forehead as he leaned an arm of the table edge next to Danny.

Danny winced as he imagined that other shoe being a steel-toed boot dropped on his foot. Why in the world couldn't his obscenely rich visitor when he was stuck ever be Sam?

The teen knew he had no choice but to roll his eyes and let the man play his game. "What do you want Vlad?" Danny couldn't help but think that although round one was a tie, he never did well when a fight with the only other man like him dragged out.

Said abnormal fruit loop gave a smile a press conference paparazzi would be proud of and slipped back into the seat across from Danny. "The arrangement I propose is simple. I use my attorneys to talk your way out of here scot-free and in return you agree to accept your role as sole legal heir to my business in my will."

Danny bristled, "I'm not going to just agree to be your apprentice because of one favor-!"

Vlad stopped him with a raised hand. "Ah- I never said you'll have to take any of the responsibilities. I've learned that with you I need to take _baby steps_. All this deal guarantees is that when I pass you will agree to inherit my fortune. Whether you choose to run the businesses personally or leave it to a board of trustees is up to you. My will is sealed and will remain confidential until after my passing, which odds are will not be for several decades from now, especially with my extra protective detail and no need to worry about a jealous heir trying to murder me to inherit my fortune," Vlad made that remark with a smirk, "so there will be no other official business or media attention until then.

"As an added bonus I will drop you off wherever you request. Your family is quite worried about you and while I love Maddie too much to recommend anything but that you return home, if by some miracle the Winchesters manage to weasel their way out of this one and you choose to return to them I will not stop you."

Danny all but had to catch his jaw with his hand as his face slacked at the man's words. Then he leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. Vlad was always fishy but this was definitely way too good to be true. "What's in it for you?"

Vlad's posture gave nothing away at his godson's sudden scrutiny. "Besides the nearly impossible prize nowadays of getting it through your thick skull that you have been exceedingly stubborn in your refusal to trust me?" The billionaire simply raised an eyebrow. "I have learned over the years that in life it is better to strategize for the long-game, something I am afraid you are in no position to do right now."

Vlad leaned back in the stiff police station chair and acted as if he was making himself comfortable. "I have already made it clear to you before that given the nature of your abilities you are uniquely suited to inherit and continue my work in ways that no one else on Earth can compare to. So, no matter what you do with my companies after my death I am better off taking the risk of leaving it to you in case you decide to continue to grow them. Part of me is confident that faced with the actual situation and full knowledge of what's at your disposal you will choose to take the reins, even if you move my companies' policies in a less profitable and more charitable direction. I will be dead at the time and while I may choose to actively haunt you, that would again require you have access to my funds and alone would already give me more influence that I can get with any other candidates for replacement CEO."

The billionaire smiled a bit at the joke. "Besides, even if you are a so much of a goody-two-shoes that you run everything to bankruptcy in ten years, which I must admit would take no small effort, I have amassed away enough wealth that I would be satisfied with the progress you could make with my legacy as a philanthropist. Knowing you, I am sure it would be far more than human charities could do with the funds.

"As for the clause with the Winchesters," Vlad continued without time for Danny to interrupt. "I know you well enough and your… inexplicable attachments to those of their type to understand that it would be a deal-breaker if I refused. Furthermore, the more selfish part of me has to admit that travelling with them will increase the likelihood of similar situations to this reoccurring, and I hope I have made it clear to you that I gain enough from this bargain to be willing to negotiate trading the funds and influence it takes to keep you safe for more… _future_ baby steps."

Danny took a minute to soak it all in. Then, he boiled it down in a way only a teenage boy could do. "So, you're basically just admitting that this whole thing is a slippery slope to me becoming your apprentice?"

"If you would prefer to just dive off the cliff and choose that path of life now I would be overjoyed, but yes." Vlad took in Danny's returning glare and barked out a laugh. "Don't act like it's such a villainous thing, my dear boy! All of life is a slippery slope towards some ultimate destination, that's simply a part of how growing up works. Take this for instance. You started off as an errand boy running small favors for spirits to help them move on, and now here you are charged of assisting two humans with over 200 grave desecrations and a dozen murders."

Vlad turned over to the briefcase he brought for the first time and pulled out a folder and opened it on the table. "Every decision we make in life sinks us deeper into our paths one way or another. Let me help you out when you're not sure how to swim."

He turned the papers inside towards Danny. Looking at the heading the teen could tell that this was meant to be his affidavit. So that's how Vlad was planning to write off his conversation with his 'attorney' taking this long…

Vlad held out a monogramed pen for him and met his gaze head on. If the man had ever begged before in his life, he was doing it now with his eyes. "Sign this and I assure you no one will be able to access anything that happened here or pin it on you. I have more than I need to make sure that this little incident will never catch up to you. And if you're still worried about the terms of my little offer, just remember, you're the one who all but said it sounded too good to be true."

He reached out with the pen towards Danny's hand and set it on top of his thumb and pointer fingers, being careful not to disturb the teen with any physical contact.

Seeing the boy's continued hesitation, the billionaire took a deep breath. "I have no reason to deceive you in business negotiations, Little Badger. It would only go against trying to get you to accept them and eventually learn to appreciate the mutual benefit of a contract. I am always willing to negotiate with you and to explain my motives, and who knows, maybe in a bit of time we can start with baby steps towards real quid pro quo and cunningly hidden clauses." Vlad said the last part like it was another favorite board game he'd like to one day play with his godson. Knowing Vlad, that probably was pretty close to the truth.

The pen settled and weighed down on Danny's hand and suddenly he felt more like the small kid being visited on his birthday by his nice but sometimes weird Uncle Vlad. The billionaire always had a tendency of spoiling him and Jazz with gifts that were way above their parents' means, and even if he was apologetic to Maddie saying it was simply hard to keep track of what a few hundred dollars meant these days Danny could always tell that the man tried to rub it in his father's face.

That didn't mean that the billionaire wouldn't sometimes stop by empty handed or just with a gift to Jazz's and later his college funds, trying to sit down with the pair to teach money management and financial responsibility. His mom always appreciated such a kind gesture from a successful businessman and would bake cookies that Vlad would treasure and use to jokingly demonstrate basic math and interest, and Danny would be lying to claim that those afternoons weren't happy childhood memories.

At least until he was old enough to realize the man before him was nothing but a liar who built his empire by cheating and had just been using him and his sister to get close to their mother. Until he found out about Danny's abilities and used the past to try to worm his way deeper into his life and favor too.

But for maybe the first time in who knows how long Danny had to admit that his mom wasn't directly involved, and that Vlad had a point that he could help him best. The cookies were replaced by a stack of papers that, while intimidating, had no mention of ghosts in them, and that made this perhaps the most normal conversation he had had with Vlad in years. The man was crazy, selfish, and an often insufferable fruit loop, but Danny wouldn't need to be seeing him again anytime soon, hopefully even ever, if he signed, and the teen had to admit that for some reason his eccentric godfather had always gotten a somewhat creepy level of satisfaction just out of helping him.

"Fine." Danny tried his best to spit as he twisted his fingers so the pen was held in his hand. "But this doesn't mean that I trust you, or that I'm going to make any future bargains with you."

"No need to worry about that, Little Badger," the man smiled, and Danny both appreciated and hated how Vlad spoke with only sincerity and not a hint of sarcasm. "That wasn't a term in our agreement, merely something I was hoping could come about some time down the road."

Danny tried to make sure his fingers didn't twitch out of sheer annoyance as he signed his name on the affidavit Vlad wrote.

* * *

Sam and Dean Winchester were making their way down a side highway from Iowa to Nebraska late the next night. They had to keep to what they hoped were nondescript roads in the dark with the headlights off, given that Castiel had just broken them out of jail not too far from here and they'd rather not be thrown right back in. Hopefully the black Impala would camouflage into the moonless night and help them sneak out of state, rather than convince a local cop to pull them over or worse, cause an accident.

Still, while the music was on uncharacteristically low so Dean could keep his senses alert for any potential pursuers and Sam was using a burner phone as a dim flashlight to try to map out a motel or friend's place they could possibly stay without tipping off the inevitable manhunt, the brothers were still on the road for hundreds of miles and therefore had time to think.

"So what do you think happened to Danny?" Sam was the one who voiced it first, much more confident in Dean's ability to hold a conversation while driving than his brother was that Sam wouldn't be bothered while navigating in low lighting.

Dean shrugged. Then, when he realized the cab was probably too dark for Sam to make out the gesture he just let out a grunt. "Beats me. I think we would've known if some demon or monster came after him, doubt it wouldn't just leave without attacking us or taunting us too, so I think odds are the kid's safe. We didn't really have the chance to waltz up and ask a cop if he got transferred or let go. Cas just said he was gone and the feds were much tighter lipped than usual talking to me, so nothing here. You got any clue?"

"No." Was Sam's only answer. After a few seconds and a slight movement of the map and flashlight the younger brother continued, "I just really hope Danny got out alright. It's our fault he's in this mess. He doesn't deserve it."

Dean chewed his lip, knowing Sam couldn't see it, and made sure to keep his gaze straight ahead in case Sam decided to turn and try to analyze his expression in the dark. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it. The kid's gone and we have no leads so best we can do is just keep moving and try to keep a lookout."

"You're not worried?" Dean could practically hear Sam's raised eyebrow.

Dean let out one of those grunt nods again. "I know the kid's probably in some trouble, whether with the law or his parents or something else, but we told Cas to keep an eye out and once we're clear we can call some other hunters who might be near Illinois or traveling frequently and ask if they can help us weed out his location. Not sure how much interest we'll get without letting stuff slip that I'm not sure the general hunter community should know…"

Both brothers didn't have to stretch their memories to recall Gordon Walker and his friends going after Sam. Although they didn't have any clear evidence that would cause that level of trouble for Danny, they didn't need to say anything to agree that the foundations of rumors still bothering them would be more trouble than it was worth for any of them. Some hunters still weren't loathe to trust the Winchesters after their involvement with more and more non-humans.

"Other than that there's not much else we can do until we have a clue where he is, so there's no sense in worrying about it." Dean started drumming his fingers along to the music, either as a worried tick or a cue to change the subject.

This time Dean could feel Sam's searching gaze and knew his brother had given up on analyzing the map in favor of puzzling over him. "And are you more worried about what trouble Danny's gotten into with the law or what someone could be doing with him if he wasn't transferred?"

Dean wasn't sure whether to growl or to sigh at the question. Somehow his vocal cords settled on a mix of both. "I don't fucking know, Sam! We have no clue where the kid's at so there's nothing we can do about it. Let's just leave it at that for now and focus on getting out of here. Got a place we can stay for after dawn or should I be looking for a wooded area to pull over?"

That luckily made Sam turn back to the map for a few minutes before he threw out a suggestion, and it was all too easy for Dean to critique it just to guarantee that his brother wouldn't later backtrack to the conversation on Danny. There were already enough thoughts and fears running through the elder Winchester's head since Cas's revelation that there were no human teenagers in the police station without Sammy adding more fuel to the fire. A couple of hours of mindless driving with no sounds but the classics on the radio and Dean knew he could sort his mind out, but with the feds, local, and state cops likely all after them he just couldn't get the mojo going that he'd need to reach any concrete conclusions on the issue.

Better to just ignore it until he had a good night sleep, a hearty non-prison food breakfast, and a chance to think. No matter how much of a mysterious potential wildcard Danny was, Dean was starting to think that he might not be an immediate threat, and unlike some other things the brothers had faced they could probably afford to spend the few days necessary to stew over this one.

When they finally pulled into a motel on few enough maps that Sam thought it might be safe to sleep at several hours later, both brothers were thoroughly exhausted. So much so, in fact, that Dean didn't realize he accidentally reverted to his newfound habit of asking the motel owner for a triple until the man remarked that they were in luck, triples were all they had left. The news the place was crowded made the Winchesters nervous enough to consider just roughing it until the owner told them it was their own private building on the edge of the property, and with the Impala hidden from street and main building view under an oak tree the brothers made their way into the latest room for the night.

There was already a figure inside.

All exhaustion was forgotten as the Winchesters jerked to alert to attention and cocked the guns ever-resting in their belts at the intruder. Without any hesitation the stranger put their hands in the air and made no effort to move, leading the Winchesters believe that hopefully this was a simple misunderstanding (unlikely given their luck). Still, as Sam moved towards the light switch he couldn't help but send Castiel a quick prayer to tell him what was happening, all the while hoping that maybe for once Fate got over her grudge and was actually on their side.

A flick of his finger against the light switch and suddenly both Sam and Dean Winchesters were bracing their eyes against the sudden brightness to take him the person waiting in their motel room.

Danny Fenton hadn't even bothered to try to adjust his eyes and had his head bent in the crook of one raised elbow.

"Danny?" Dean felt the need to question the obvious. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I got out this afternoon and one of my sources said this motel was the place you'd most likely be staying. There were only a handful of rooms left by the time I got here but this was the most secluded so I figured if I'd have any chance at catching up with you that this would be my best shot."

The teen squinted as he tried to turn his gaze on the brothers standing under the front lights. "Speaking of shots, do you mind putting those things away? I've been with you guys 24/7 for who knows how long, and then less than 48 hours apart and you pull a gun on me? I knew you two could be clingy but way to make a kid feel loved."

Dean looked at the gun and then at Danny, repeating the gesture a couple of times in confused exhaustion. "Christo?" The man said half-heartedly, then shrugged at Sam after the lack of a reaction from Danny and lowered his pistol.

Still, Sam was the first to take a step forward into the room after lowering his own gun. "How did you get out of there?"

Danny shrugged. "Had some help from a friend." He didn't miss the way both hunters stiffened.

Figuring they owed him for pulling weapons on him, the teen decided he could have some fun. He laid himself down on his chosen bed for the night (furthest from the door, he knew the Winchesters well enough to know that Dean always took the door and he'd get murdered before coming between the elder brother and a sleeping Sammy) and sent the hunters a lopsided grin.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that my helper was both not dead and totally human?"

Danny made sure not to laugh out loud at the expressions he got in return, but Bobby was distant enough from the human plane to make no such exception, and the psychic smiled at the ghost and his own mirth in the little time it took for his exhausted body (glad to be reunited with people who strangely enough made him feel more rather than less safe) to finally fall into a deep sleep.

* * *

It wasn't hard in all of the chaos of the FBI-infested Iowa police station the next morning for a single middle age receptionist to slip outside unnoticed and pull out her cell phone for a personal call.

A haunting flash of black eyes, however, would've given it away to any human who wasn't too busy trying to track down the Winchesters to pay attention that their occupant wasn't exactly catching up with worried family members.

This demon could tell almost as soon as they arrived on scene an hour ago that there was little they could do besides search through the meatsuit's memories for reconnaissance and report back to the higher ups in Hell.

But even that simple goal felt much more intimidating when the King of Hell himself picked up the other end of the line.

"Ah, report?"

The demon stiffened in its borrowed meatbag. "Sir, there are no signs of the Winchesters. The humans have completely lost track of them and don't have a trace."

There was a dejected sigh on the other end of the line that made the lackey fear it'd be sentenced to another few centuries on the rack after its first assignment for being the bearer of bad news. Luckily, when Crowley responded it sounded as if he almost expected this.

"Figured they'd get featherbrains to give them a lift out. Anything else to report?"

The King seemed to be asking almost as a formality, so when demon thought back on the interesting factoid from the receptionist's memory he couldn't help but hesitate and wonder how many centuries it'd get per minute of Crowley's time wasted.

"Well?" Crowley's voice, while now expectant at the pause, certainly wasn't patient.

Maybe it was on the scale of centuries per second…

"There may be one thing of interest…" The demon almost squeaked. Really, it had only been upstairs for a couple of months, not even long enough to fully understand Hell's machinations on Earth beyond the fact that the Winchesters were apparently a common and unwelcome thorn in their side.

"Yes?" That word alone made the vessel quiver as the demon considered its chances of survival and cursed its lack of foresight.

It let out an audible gulp. "The Winchesters weren't alone. There was a teenage boy with them."

There was a moment of silence before Crowley let out the sound of pleased laughter from the other end of the line. "Oh, ho I was not expecting to hear that. Now this, this is some good news."

The demon was practically vibrating in its body. Maybe this was its chance to move up the food chain! "The vessel I'm in didn't have access to the boy's identification, but I'm sure with some further investigation I can find out-"

"No need." Crowley cut him off. "I am already all too aware of who the boy is. Though why even the idiotic Winchesters would choose to move such a valuable asset from the safety of somewhere we couldn't find him out into the open is completely beyond me, this is far too good a coincidence to simply pass up.

"Kill the meatsuit quietly and make your way back downstairs for now. We don't want to stir up a fuss or let good old Squirrel and Moose know we're on to them. Don't worry, you'll be well rewarded for bringing me such valuable information."

The demon topside almost burst its host right there from relief and exhilaration at the words, while deep in Hell its King thought almost nothing of the empty gesture.

No, Crowley was far too busy rearranging his plans and putting everything in place.

"Oh this is just too perfect." The King of Hell muttered. He never considered that there might be a mistake, or that had his scout been any less green to human nature he'd have remembered that Hell's one and only teenage target was named Kevin Tran, and a kid with such an Asian name probably looked nothing like white-as-death Danny Fenton.

But Crowley didn't even bother to think of that. After all, there was no reason for the Winchesters to be carting around a human teenager besides the oh-so-elusive prophet of the lord. Crowley would have to keep his spies on the most frustrating humans he knew and find the perfect time to pay them all a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now a bit more about connection!verse Vlad with no fear of spoilers now that you've met him! I spent a lot of time planning this chapter and imagining how Vlad would be different as more medium than halfa, so I have quite the backstory developed. First off, Vlad's more of a businessman even than in canon. Canon Vlad admitted he made his fortune by overshadowing people and forcing them to sign bad deals. Even with the immediate lack of memory that's a bit of a cartoon stretch. In this verse, most of Vlad's businesses are tech companies (hence why he buys out Axiom Labs) with the obscene amounts of money he makes invested in the ruling-the-world-already corporate villainy that made him unique in the show.
> 
> The more subtle onset of abilities also meant that Vlad never had ecto-acne. Whether or not there was a sudden portal accident or it was long-term like radiation is still in question, though Vlad's role as the one building most of it (beyond the diet soda) and Danny's proximate development made each of them most susceptible. Vlad's suspicions in chapter actually revolve around trying to induce a psychic ability in Jazz, as that's his best back up should Danny refuse. The man's still hoping for one sibling to eventually come willingly, however, so he's not going to bring it up.
> 
> But while Vlad wasn't in the hospital for years, he did suddenly discover he could speak to dead people, and that social blow came at a crucial time that culminated in him losing Maddie. He hates Jack out of jealously, but doesn't have the same direct link that the man took years off of his life. This means that Vlad took his role of godfather to the Fenton kids a bit more seriously (he'd come to major events to try to get Maddie to imagine him being her family instead and would pop by unannounced if Jack was out of town). Therefore he knew Danny a bit as a child, and was able to pick up on the signs (until he sent a ghost to meet Danny and confirm) that the boy was also psychic. Then the apprentice scheme we all know and love began.
> 
> In terms of his fortune, Vlad used a combination of his own technical prowess and the unique ideas he heard from ghosts (one of the more immediately resonant ones was a professor murdered at University of Wisconsin by a business client trying to steal the credit and patent for an almost finished invention that Vlad helped move on by finishing the design first and foiling the plot) to build a startup. And then a few more. And really no human being could possibly be that creative but he has dead people ranging from the scorned to the unfulfilled who just really want to help humanity and are used to the corporate way. He also has a couple hidden corporate labs run entirely by robots and ghosts. Basically Vlad is the Ghost Whisperer meets Elon Musk.
> 
> He wants Danny (or a psychically induced Jazz. Or a clone. He's ingenious and morally ambiguous) to take over because he's the only one who can really know everything that's going on without shutting all of that down. Vlad still cuts corners and does hostile takeovers and charges insane pharmaceutical prices and other things Danny considers evil, but rather than outright bask in villainy like the campier episodes of the show he just doesn't care about morals at all, and won't go out of his way to do bad or good. While physically trapping a kid and killing their father is a good way of getting an apprentice in a cartoon, the (I personally think more realistic) top-of-the-world businessman approach would be selling himself as a mentor who always has an offer Danny can't refuse waiting in the wings, and charging a small token of Danny's freedom each time. Basically, fitting in with the crossover, Danny's got his own personal crossroads demon after his soul, and rather than ten years of life for one big boon, Vlad has the patience to give him small favors over the years for bits and pieces of Danny's soul, all the while insisting only that the Winchesters be kept in the dark for the sake of their shared secrets (a truce similar to that from Bitter Reunions still stands). This only adds to the mystery for Sam and Dean (especially if they ever find out that wtf this random teenager happens to be the sole heir to one of America's biggest fortunes? that isn't shady at all), but if Vlad gets his way enough to start pulling Danny away from the Winchesters a whole lot of characters are suddenly going to get involved and be pissed it got this far.
> 
> I guess an accurate tl:dr for this super long chapter and mega long (it clocked in over 2000 words I'm SO sorry) author's notes would be that I have a lot of ideas I enjoy setting up in this sandbox and no idea how many of them I'll actually play with. I don't concretely have mapped out another scheduled appearance for Vlad, but I've more than opened the door for him to step in and have quite the role in this series, and hopefully that'll be something people can look forward to!


End file.
